Messiah
by Ari Moriarty
Summary: SPIN-OFF from "Bondswoman." Six months after the end of "Bondswoman," a new copycat killer emerges on the streets of Inaba. In the midst of that investigation, Minako and Adachi tumble headlong down the path to romantic redemption. Love can change people and bring out their best, but it can easily warp backwards into hate. Adachi x Minako.
1. Prologue - December 15

**Author's Note: **Welcome…to the dark side of Inaba. We don't have cookies, I'm afraid, but we do have crack pairings!

If you're looking for the direct sequel to **Bondswoman**, then you're not quite in the right place. Tomorrow, after I finish a few edits, I'll post the first chapter of **Piecekeeping**, which follows the further adventures of the Investigation Team and their quest to free Yu's mind from the shadows. That's the direct sequel.

This is…well, it's also a sequel to **Bondswoman**, but really, it's more of a spin-off. This story will focus on the developing relationship between Minako and Adachi, and is more of what happens behind the scenes of **Piecekeeping**. If you did not enjoy reading Adachi's characterization in **Bondswoman**, seriously, you are going to want to turn around and wait for the other story. This one just isn't gonna make you very happy, and all I genuinely want is for you to be happy!

If you did, however, enjoy reading about Adachi in **Bondswoman**, then you're in for a treat…I hope. This story will contain slightly darker content than the usual fare. Alcohol! Sex! ANGST! Sarcasm and snark! Self destructive behavior! MORE ANGST! And, remarkably enough, a happy ending! Wow, I am so excited…seriously, this is going to be fun!

So, if you're still here, fantastic! I am looking forward to writing for you!

And now, without further ado…let's have some terribly ill-advised fun, shall we?

Sincerely,

**Prologue – December 10**

**Six months after the defeat of the snake shadow...**

"Ugh," said Junpei, as he slumped into a chair across from Minako at the Junes food court. "I'm beat."

Minako just nodded, halfway through a mouthful of croissant.

"Tell you what," he continued, reaching out to tweak a corner of the croissant right out of Minako's fingers. "Here's an idea. Let's you and I take a vacation. I mean, you probably need it even more than I do, the way things have been at the station lately."

Swallowing finally, Minako frowned. "Really? Wouldn't you rather take Rise?" she asked.

"Nah," muttered Junpei. "Dude, a man needs his space, you know? Besides…I can't take Rise to the place that I want to go. It would…it would just be weird. Too many memories, and shit."

Suddenly, Minako began to understand. "Oh," she said, "you mean, Iwatodai? You want to go back and visit? That's a pretty good idea, actually…there are lots of people there I'd like to see. Mitsuru did say that if we ever wanted to drop by, she could put us up at one of the Kirijo Corporation's new hotels. That might be a lot of fun."

"Seriously?" asked Junpei. "Is there anything Mitsuru doesn't own?"

Neither of them felt the need to actually answer that obviously rhetorical question.

"If you really want to go," Minako told him, "then I think it's a great idea. I have Christmas week off of work at the station. I tried to refuse, but Dojima-san insisted. I think he forgets that I don't have any family to go home to for the holidays."

"Yeah? And what am I, huh?" Junpei sounded slightly offended. "Okay, maybe we're not family, but…we're, you know, we're something like that, anyway. And if we go back and see the rest of the SEES guys for Christmas, it'll be just like a family reunion. Sort of."

Minako nodded, but bit her lip, thinking that there was at least one former SEES member whom she wasn't entirely sure would want to see her. After her break-up with Shinjiro six months before, she was just beginning to get back on her feet, and seeing him again might throw everything back into the emotional mess that it had been when he'd first walked out of her life.

"Hey, it'll be fine," insisted Junpei, apparently reading the feelings running across her face. "He probably won't even show, and…if there's stuff you want to say to him, now's probably as good a time as any, right?"

Unable to disagree with that, Minako nodded. After all, it had been Shinjiro who had opened the door for her to go back to and find him in Iwatodai. "All right," she agreed. "Let's do it. Will you talk to Daidara-san today?"

They agreed that he would, and, after wolfing down the rest of his breakfast, Junpei jogged off to work, leaving Minako alone with a conflicted series of thoughts and feelings. Determined to spend her Saturday being as productive as possible, she tossed out her trash and headed for the grocery department to see if she could find someone to help her locate a few tomatoes for the evening's dinner.

"Oh, Minako!" called out Nanako, from somewhere to Minako's right. "Hi! Are you shopping? Can I help?"

Minako smiled. Trust Nanako to be there just when she really did need a helping hand. "Actually, yes, if you don't mind," she said. "Would you mind helping me with my grocery list, Nanako-chan?"

They walked together through the various food isles, with Minako listing her requirements, and Nanako dutifully loading them into the cart. Two people working together took significantly less time than it would have taken Minako alone, and before long they'd completed a very successful shopping trip.

"Everyone's coming home tomorrow!" Nanako announced, as Minako handed over the money at the counter. "Yosuke, and Chie, and Yukiko, and Big Bro, too! I can't wait! Dad says that he's going to take the night off work so that we can go out for a sushi dinner!"

Nanako's enthusiasm made Minako laugh. Six months ago, Yu had returned to his parents in the city, and Yosuke had traveled with Chie and Yukiko to the local university, not too far from where Yu and his family were living. She was sure that all four of them had been having a fantastic time, but it was true that things were a lot lonelier around here without their company. Naoto, Kanji, and Rise were all still working their way through high school, of course, but somehow things could never be the same while everyone as scattered across different places. She, too, was looking forward to having the gang back together.

"I'm going to go and tell Igor and the others about it!" Nanako continued. "That's why I came to Junes. I'm not in school today, so I thought that maybe they'd like to hear the good news! I'll try to bring Yosuke and everybody to see them when they're in town, but…you know how it is."

That was, in fact, not quite true. Minako, unable to ever enter the Velvet Room again, did not and could not know exactly how it was. As far as she was aware, the three Velvet Room assistants had sacrificed themselves to protect her and Yu's minds, something that she had never even had the time to convince them not to do. How Nanako could manage to talk to them, now that they were, essentially, nonexistent had always puzzled Minako. There were, however, more things in the world than she could possibly explain, and multiple experiences with shadows and personas had proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. For that reason, she never bothered to question Nanako about it. "Say hello to them for me," she asked instead. "Tell them I send my love."

Nanako was quiet for a minute, apparently thinking. "You should come with me!" she said finally.

"I'm sorry, Nanako, but I can't," Minako reminded her. "They won't let me into the Velvet Room anymore. You'll have to tell them that I-!"

"But, you can come see Adachi-san," insisted Nanako. "I can bring him out to you, remember? He's probably lonely in there with just Igor to keep him company. We should go and visit him."

That was not an idea that appealed to Minako at all. As often as possible, she tried to forget that Tohru Adachi, self-confessed culprit behind the famous Inaba serial murders, was even still alive. She'd told Dojima that he'd been killed in the attack on the Velvet Room, and most days, she heartily wished that it was true, especially after his interference with her life had destroyed her relationship with a man who she was sure she'd really, deeply loved.

Unfortunately, there were other days as well, days that Minako woke up in the middle of the night in her slightly too large, empty bedroom, and remembered the last kiss he'd given her before he'd disappeared to become the newest Velvet Room assistant. It had, unfortunately, been the kind of kiss that it was terribly hard to forget, full of longing, ferocity, and a tenderness that was totally at odds with everything that that Tohru had said about the meaninglessness of life and death. No one who really believed that life was worthless could possibly kiss like that. It was a conundrum that Minako spent a great deal of her time trying actively not to think about.

There were, therefore, a lot of complicated feelings behind her answer as she told Nanako, as politely as she could, "No thank you. I don't think I have anything to say to Adachi anymore."

"Aw," murmured Nanako, sounding genuinely disappointed. "But…Minako, I think…" she lowered her voice, and even Minako, who had excellent, practiced hearing had to lean closer in just to listen. "I think he really likes you," finished Nanako.

It was all Minako could do not to burst out laughing. Nanako had oversimplified the situation so much that it would have been hilarious, if Minako hadn't already been so uncomfortable about it. "Nanako-chan," she insisted carefully, "I don't' think he quite 'likes' me. It's…it's a little more complicated than that. Besides, I don't like him at all, so it doesn't matter."

Unfortunately, Nanako was not and had never been a stupid girl. "No," she said stubbornly, "you're lying. It's not nice to lie." Minako felt as though she'd just been caught out by a particularly strict elementary school teacher. "You're just saying that because you don't want to go. Are you afraid of the Velvet Room? It's okay if you're scared. Everyone gets scared sometimes, even Big Bro!"

Minako remembered all too well the last time that Yu, Nanako's "Big Bro" had been really frightened. The result of that fear had been an elusive rabbit shadow, which had been ultimately eaten up by Minako's giant, raging snake shadow, and that had almost resulted in the death by psychological torture of both Minako and Yu, and perhaps all of their friends as well. Looking at it that way, Minako reasoned, it was hard to imagine that it was really "okay" to be afraid.

Nevertheless, something about Nanako's accusatory tone of voice had pricked at Minako's pride. "All right," she said, relenting. "Nanako, if you want me to go with you, I'll go. Yu and Yosuke wouldn't want me to let you wander around in there alone, anyway, especially not after what happened a few months ago. I'm not going to see Adachi, you understand…I 'm just going to keep you company. Okay?"

"Okay!" agreed Nanako readily, with a beaming smile playing all throughout her voice. "Yay! Hey, maybe after we visit Adachi-san, we can ge takoyaki! Do you like takoyaki?"

They chatted together about various different lunch options as Nanako led Minako through the electronics department and up to their favorite television set. "Um," she remarked hesitantly, "Do I have to…push you inside?"

Recognizing a means of potential escape, Minako replied, "No, of course not, Nanako. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. I'm pretty heavy, I know, and it might be really hard to push someone my size into a TV like this."

That of course, had been the wrong thing to say. Minako realized it even as the words were in the process of coming out of her mouth. Before she had a chance to correct the mistake, however, Nanako had both hands against Minako's back, and was saying, "No, I'm okay! I'm really strong! Chie and I have been training together, and she says that I'll probably be even faster and stronger than Big Bro someday! Um, faster and stronger than he was before he got hurt, anyway."

"Nanako-!" began Minako, preparing to attempt to say something like "It's not polite to push people, remember?" She never had the chance. Before she knew it, she was tumbling forward through the fuzzy, blurred feeling that was always the prelude to finding herself on the floor of the TV world. Nanako wasn't wrong, Minako reflected. She really was very strong for her age.

Once Nanako had joined her inside the TV, she helped Minako back up on to her feet. "I'll be right back," she promised, her footsteps heading off in the direction of the Velvet Room door. "Don't go away, okay?"

As she waited for Nanako to return, Minako wondered idly to herself whether or not this could reasonably be considered masochism.

It was unclear just how much time passed for Minako before she heard a door creak open, and recognized the sound of two sets of footsteps returning in her direction.

"…just in time," she heard Tohru saying. "If I had to sit there by myself for one more minute, I was going to go crazy and start shooting up the place. Seriously, when I agreed to this, I had no clue what I was getting into. Jail might have been better for me after all."

"You aren't allowed to shoot things," Nanako reminded him firmly. "That's against the rules. You have to be good if you want to come out."

Tohru grumbled to himself. "Time off for good behavior, huh?" he asked. "Not sure it's worth it, really…"

Suddenly, his voice trailed off, and Minako heard his feet stop dead just a few paces away from her. Here we go, she thought.

"Wha-?" muttered Tohru, sounding slightly stunned. "You? Um…heh, this is a surprise." He laughed his nervous, uncertain laugh. "Long time no see, blind girl. I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me."

"No such luck, unfortunately," sighed Minako. "Not for lack of trying, of course."

"Oh yeah? So you have been thinking about me? Good to know," said Tohru.

Minako gritted her teeth. She had every reason to hate him. She wanted so badly to hate him.

"What?" asked Tohru. "Is that all I get? No 'How have you been, Tohru?' or 'Thanks for being badass enough to pull my friends' asses out of the fire for me?'"

"I have nothing in particular to say to you, Adachi-san," announced Minako formally. "At least, nothing that would be civil enough to say in front of Nanako-chan."

That seemed to stop him for a moment, and there was a brief pause before Tohru spoke again. When he did, there was just slightly less sarcastic bravado in his voice, as though she'd thrown him off and he was trying not to let on.

"Oh," he said. "No more first names, huh? What did I do to deserve that?"

Minako thought that was a stupid question. This, in fact, was a stupid conversation. She decided that she wasn't actually going to have it after all.

Unfortunately, Nanako did not get the memo in time. "Oh, it's okay," she told him. "It's not you. Minako's just having a really tough time right now…she's still sad about Shinjiro-san."

Huh? Wait," asked Tohru, "did you and He-Man break up or something?"

Minako took a deep breath. "Nanako-chan," she murmured, "Why would you tell him that?"

"I didn't want him to think that you were mad at him!" countered Nanako. "Oh…was it supposed to be a secret? Um…I'm sorry."

Well, thought Minako, it isn't anymore. She could feel Tohru's eyes on her, and suddenly she knew that she was about to be seriously out of her depth. "We're leaving," she told Nanako in no uncertain terms. "Come on, Nanako; you know you're not supposed to be in here by yourself. If I'm going, then you should be going too."

Without waiting for a response, she started to walk back towards the exit, but soon discovered that Tohru was blocking the way. She tried to duck to one side to get around him, but he reached out and grabbed her by the arm.

"Wait, hang on," he said. "So, let me get this straight. You're a free woman now?"

"I will be when you let go of my arm," muttered Minako.

"Really? No kidding. Then…" continued Tohru, apparently ignoring her, "there's no reason why I can't take you out, right?"

Minako paused. There were, she knew, at least six hundred reasons why Tohru could do no such thing. She just had to come up with one of them. For some strange reason, she was having a hard time putting any of them into words at the moment.

"Of course you can't," she told him finally, regaining a little bit of her poise as she remembered something that should have been obvious to her from the start. "You're not allowed to leave the Velvet Room without supervision."

"Huh," said Tohru. "Okay, fair enough. What do you think, Nanako-chan? Can I go out with Minako? Does that count as 'supervision?'"

"No!" said Minako.

"Umm…" hummed Nanako thoughtfully. "Yeah, you can go, but you have to be back by nine o'clock."

"What?" demanded Tohru in disbelief. "No way, that's nuts. Come on, you can do better than that."

"Uh, okay." Nanako tried again. "Then you can stay until ten o'clock, but only if you call at nine to tell me where you are."

"Ugh," muttered Tohru. "You are so obviously Dojima-san's kid…does he ever let you have any fun? He'd better watch out, or you're gonna turn into a living terror when you get to high school. The good girls usually do. Anyway. You have to give me till midnight."

"Hey!" demanded Minako. "Is anyone listening to me? Nanako!"

"No," said Nanako, "Midnight is too late! You can come back at eleven, but you have to call at nine, and you have to bring me an ice cream from Junes."

"Isn't it supposed to be winter outside?" asked Tohru. "Seriously, what do you want with an ice cream in the middle of winter?"

Minako's head was spinning. She'd had enough. This had gone much too far already, and it was getting more and more surreal by the moment. "Nanako," she insisted carefully, "You can't just let this man go running around out in the world by himself. He's a killer! He kills people! Someone could get hurt!"

"Nuh-uh," replied Nanako firmly. "There are rules."

"Rules?" echoed Minako, helplessly.

"Yeah," agreed Tohru. "I hate to say it, but the kid's right. My hands are tied. A few months ago I tried to make a run for it, and as soon as I stepped out of the TV, I blacked out. Can't remember a damn thing about it, except when I woke up, I was on the floor with that creepy Igor guy staring down at me. My wallet was gone, too. Tch. Figures." He sighed in exasperation. "This place may not look like a prison, but just because you can't see the cuffs doesn't mean they aren't there. I never thought I'd say this, but this is even worse than getting stuck being transferred to Inaba."

Minako frowned, wondering if that was true. She didn't remember there being any "rules" for the Velvet Room attendants. Then again, in the past, it had always been Elizabeth, Theodore, or Margaret. They weren't human. Maybe the rules simply didn't apply to them. Maybe Igor had made up the rules just for Adachi. She couldn't be sure. "So, you've tried to escape before," she said.

Tohru laughed. "Come on," he said, "give me a little credit. You had to figure I'd at least try once."

Nanako made a disappointed little "tsk" sound in her throat. "You promised," she reminded him. "You signed a contract. Igor made you sign it, and I watched."

"I've never exactly made a habit of keeping promises," Tohru informed her. "Why start now? That would get old really fast. It's more interesting if I keep you guessing, right?"

"Well," said Minako, "it looks like you don't have a choice this time. Rules are rules. You'll have to learn to live with them." She tried to wrench her arm free from Tohru's grip, but he was holding her hard, and she couldn't get away. "You're hurting me," she told him. "Stop it. I'm going home."

As his grip on her arm relaxed very slightly, taking just a little bit of the pressure off, Tohru asked her, "How long has it been since you've been on a real date? I'm not talking about dinner with friends, or fighting with your boyfriend. I mean a real date. You know, like when you go out, have too much fun, order everything on the menu and then make the guy pay for it all. You told me before that I should ask you like a 'normal person,' so I'm asking you. What's the big deal? I'm a tame man as long as I'm stuck as a slave to this Velvet Room place. What have you got to lose?"

Minako considered telling him that she had plenty to lose. Agreeing to go on a date with him would mean sacrificing her pride, self-esteem, and self-respect, not to mention all of the time that it would end up taking out of her already busy schedule. There were myriad reasons why she should say no, and why she was going, without any hesitation, to say no. It was out of the question. Even thinking about it was absolutely ridiculous.

"I'm not gonna ask you again," Tohru told her. "This is your last chance. Admit it, you're curious. You want to know if you could have a good time with me. So, what's it gonna be, blind girl? Yes, or no?"


	2. One - December 15

**Author's Note: **Whee, this is fun! Okay, I have to post these next two chapters together, because technically they both take place chronologically before the beginning of **Piecekeeping.** Wow, this timeline is getting a little nuts, but don't' worry, I have everything under control.

Uh, give me a few minutes before I upload the rest of the stuff I wrote this week. I have to take my laundry out of the dryer before I update anymore…it's coming, though.

Oh, if you're curious where I'm getting this interpretation of Adachi, he makes several comments during the game, especially during his social link, about preferring the city, hating how boring life in Inaba is, and being the kind of kid whose parents didn't what kind of stuff he got up to in high school. It's all there in the dialogue, you just have to look carefully to find it.

**One – December 15**

"Um," said Minako, which wasn't at all what she'd hoped would come out when she opened her mouth.

The trouble was that Tohru wasn't wrong. She was curious. She'd been curious ever since she'd met him that first night outside of Shiroku, and had been unexpectedly and unwisely attracted by the pain in his voice and the mysterious way he spoke about himself. It was no good reason for a grown woman to be drawn to anyone, but there it was, nonetheless. The more she'd grown to loathe him for the person he'd pretended not to be, the more curious she'd become about the person he really was. He was right, she did want to know what it would be like to go on a date with him, and if what he said was true, then there was nothing for her to be afraid of. Nothing, that is, except for the fact that she might not end up hating it. That possibility terrified her more than anything else. That and, of course, the knowledge that if her friends ever found out, they would probably burn her in effigy, or just refuse to ever speak to her again as long as they lived.

"Um," managed Minako, around a series of rapid-fire uncertain thoughts, "I'm not dressed to go out."

Really, she thought to herself. Really, was that the best she could come up with?

"So? Go home and change," suggested Tohru. She could hear the amusement in his voice, and knew that he was enjoying watching himself win this game. "We can meet back here at seven o'clock. I would say don't be late, but…I'm probably not going anywhere, either way."

"I can't get back in on my own," realized Minako.

"Don't worry about it," Tohru assured her. "I'll meet you at the entrance and pull you in. Just, uh, wave or something. We'll figure it out."

Minako didn't bother to answer him. Instead, she turned around, and starting walking back towards the entrance, hoping that Nanako would have the good sense to follow her. Tohru remained where he was, apparently satisfied, for once, with whatever havoc he had already managed to wreak on Minako's head.

"See?" asked Nanako triumphantly, as they climbed out of the TV together. "I told you he likes you!"

Minako opened her mouth to speak, but almost immediately closed it again. It was impossible to think of a way to respond to that. There were just no words.

**Seven o'clock the same evening…**

Minako stood outside the big TV in the Junes electronics department, after having spent the last three hours deliberating over what she could possibly wear. At first, she'd started pawing through her clothes, fingering each of the swatches she'd sewn in to try and help her figure out which pieces actually matched. Eventually, she'd realized that she had no idea what sort of thing Tohru would even like, and shortly after that, she'd decided that she didn't care what Tohru would like anyway. When she'd discovered that she did, in fact, care about it, she'd attempted to talk herself out of caring, and had ultimately given up and called Rise to beg her to come over.

"Please," she'd said to Rise, clasping both hands together in front of her in a gesture of abject pleading. "Don't' ask me why. I really don't' want to talk about it. Just help me look…um…"

"Sexy?" Rise had suggested.

No, Minako had thought. "Yes, sort of," she'd said out loud. "Do you think that you can-?"

So Rise had carefully gone through Minako's wardrobe, and rejected everything that she owned. They'd eventually headed over to Rise's house, where the teen idol had picked out a few selections from her own personal closet, and had insisted that Minako try each of them on.

"These are…kinda tight on me," Minako had told her, biting her lip.

Rise had been totally unperturbed. "Well, you said that you wanted to look 'sexy' didn't you?"

Now, standing in front of the TV, wearing her hair uncharacteristically down on Rise's express orders, Minako self-consciously tugged at the very short skirt of her borrowed dress. She was nervous, and she was so disgusted with herself for being nervous that she sort of wanted to vomit.

It was going to be a long night.

Taking a deep breath, she stuck her hand up to the TV screen, tapped on the glass, and then waved.

At first, nothing happened. That gave Minako a little bit of courage, and she tapped on the glass again, beginning to hope that maybe this trick wasn't going to work, and Tohru wasn't going to be able to tell that she was there at all.

"This is ridiculous," she muttered out loud to herself. "I already knew that this wasn't going to work. Why'd I get all dressed up like this? I must be going out of my mind…"

Then, both of Tohru's hands emerged from the TV. Grabbing on to Minako's wrists, he pulled her inside.

She hit the ground with her usual fuzzy thud, and was surprised when Tohru didn't make any snarky comments about her graceful landing. In fact, he wasn't saying anything at all, but was apparently just standing there, watching her get off the ground and dust herself off.

"What?" she asked defensively.

"Oh," mumbled Tohru, "nothing. Nope. Nothing." Oddly enough, he didn't sound quite like his usual self. There was something in his voice that made Minako wonder briefly if he was as nervous as she was. "You should wear your hair down more often. It's…it's not bad."

Minako flushed, and at the same time made a firm mental note to never wear her hair down ever again.

"The blush isn't a bad look for you, either," remarked Tohru. "It's almost cute."

"And I almost don't care," retorted Minako, aware that the response made her sound as though she were a six year old in a playground war. "How did you know I was there?"

Tohru laughed. "Actually, uh, I didn't. It's six o'clock, though."

So, thought Minako, he was so confident that she'd come, he didn't even have to look and see. Inwardly, she seethed. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"Well," replied Tohru, "I was gonna surprise you, but…I guess since you can't see, it probably wouldn't turn out right. Ever been to a nightclub?" As he spoke, he took her by the arm and guided her across the floor of the TV world. Minako, uncertain exactly where he was taking her, followed dumbly along. "There's this new club that just opened in the city," continued Tohru. "When I was in school, I used to sneak out all the time to check out the one in my home town. Heh, it was pretty easy. Security at those places is never good enough, and my parents never found out, or, if they did, I guess they didn't care."

Minako, who had not had parents in high school to care one way or another, remembered the few trips she'd taken to Club Escapade at Paulownia mall, where there were never more than four or five people at a time, except for the one very drunken old monk.

"I've been," she told him.

"Yeah?" Tohru sounded impressed. "Wow, I didn't think you'd be that kind of a kid."

"I didn't like it much," insisted Minako, holding on to stubbornness for all it was worth.

"Then you probably weren't doing it right," Tohru informed her. "Want me to teach you how to have a good time? You probably need it as bad as I do."

Minako was not so sure about that. "Are you sure it's even okay for you go out?" she asked him. "What if someone sees you? How will I explain this to Dojima-san if he finds out that, after all, you're not dead?"

Tohru was unperturbed. "I wouldn't worry about it," he said. "Places like where we're going are usually too dark and loud to find anyone in. Nobody will be paying attention to us."

Oh, great, thought Minako, with a little, inward sigh. She could think of few worse ideas than being stuck in a dark, noisy place with Tohru Adachi, where no one would see her or be able to hear her scream. At least, she knew that it was a bad idea on a rational level. Honestly, despite all of her misgiving and lack of enthusiasm, she wasn't afraid. Even on the day that he'd almost taken advantage of her, Minako had difficulty believing that he was really going to do her any harm, not that she could say why she felt that way, or justify it at all. At least now she had good cause to feel secure. After all, he had told her that he wasn't allowed to hurt anyone. That was true, right? Wasn't it?

Resignedly, she wondered where Rise and Junpei were right now. They'd probably, she thought, be on a nice, normal, relaxing dinner date, or maybe watching a movie at home, completely oblivious to the terrible life choices that Minako was in the process of making. Rise, though, would probably really like to visit a brand new nightclub. It was a shame, of course, that Minako couldn't invite Rise and Junpei along. A double date was always safer, in so many more ways than one.

"We're here," Tohru informed her.

"What? Where?" Minako asked, slightly puzzled.

"If we jump out here," said Tohru, "we can go straight through the TV monitor at the club. I've…had a lot of time to figure out how this place works, and how to get around. Not, of course, that I'm ever allowed to actually go anywhere. This is pretty much the first time."

"What? Doesn't Nanako ever come and take you out?" asked Minako, remembering the way that she and Theodore had used to go on little "dates" when she had been the Wild Card.

"Um…well, yeah," muttered Tohru. "I mean, she's a nice kid, but…she's seven years old."

"Eight," corrected Minako mechanically, knowing that Nanako would not have liked hearing him age her down by a year.

"Yeah, whatever, sure," agreed Tohru, with one of his nervous laughs. "She's kinda young. We don't…exactly want to go to the same places."

I, thought Minako, am also "kinda young." She could only assume that Tohru was settling for the best that he could get, at this point. "How old are you, anyway?" She asked. "I don't think you've ever told me. That doesn't seem fair, especially now that we're on a date together."

There was a moment of awkward silence before Tohru cleared his throat. "Is that…really something you need to know?" he asked eventually.

Minako didn't actually care one way or another, but she was enjoying the discomfort in his voice enough to press the point. "Come on," she said. "How bad could it be? You certainly don't act any older than Kanji or Yosuke, so…"

That jibe apparently touched a nerve. "Hey, don't compare me to your dumbass little friends," muttered Tohru. "I'll be thirty in two months."

"Thirty?"squeaked Minako.

"What? What's wrong with that?" asked Tohru defensively.

"Um…"Minako was genuinely taken aback. "That's…a lot older than I was expecting, honestly."

There was a long, awkward moment, during which Minako wondered just how old she had thought Tohru was. She hadn't really spent any time thinking about it before. He was just that "older guy." Older guys were definitely attractive, and every high school girl worth her salt knew that, but…thirty? Really? And he was still excited about spending time at a nightclub?

Abruptly, Tohru started pulling her by the arm again. "Come on," he mumbled. "Let's go."

Minako's feet left the ground, and she felt herself falling again through the blurry, fuzzy space between the TV world and her own world, until she managed to get a foothold on the floor again. She was pleased that, just this once, she'd managed not to land on all fours, or worse, on her face.

It was obvious immediately that she was at a club. The atmosphere around her had totally changed from the quiet, almost eerie calm that came from walking through a shadow-free TV world. There was now noise everywhere, and loud, insistent dance music that Minako didn't recognize blaring through what she could only assume was in impressive pair of nearby speakers. People were talking and laughing, shuffling around, and the echoes of their feet on the floor indicated that this club was a lot more popular than Club Escapade had ever been during Minako's high school days.

"Do you think anyone saw us?" she asked, hoping that Tohru had landed close enough nearby to be able to find her again.

From just behind her right shoulder, she heard him say "No, it's like I said. Nobody's paying any attention to us."

Someone jostled into Minako, knocking her around, and she unconsciously stepped back closer to Tohru, afraid of getting bowled over or lost in the unseen crowd. She heard him laugh as he reached out to slide one hand protectively around her waist. "Yeah, good idea," he told her. "We should probably stick together. Nanako-chan and Igor would be pissed if I came back without you. I might lose my parole forever if that happens."

Minako was aware that what Tohru said made sense, and that she probably should do her best to stay near him. At the same time, she knew that he was toying with her, and probably enjoying every moment of it.

"Wow," muttered Tohru. "It's nice to be back in the real world."

"The Velvet Room really isn't that bad," said Minako.

"That's…not exactly what I meant." Tohru sighed appreciatively. "No, it's just…it has been a really, really long time since I've been anywhere with a population of more than a few hundred. I mean…Inaba's the kind of place where city people go to die. This, this is the real thing."

Minako honestly didn't notice much of an improvement. Even if she'd only spent the last couple of years in Inaba, she'd never really seen a reason to compare it to Iwatodai. There were some nice things about living in a place where everyone knew her name. A small town with fewer people and fewer places was easier for her to figure out how to navigate on her own, and the slower, more sedate pace of Inaba life and offered her a way to be at least partially self sufficient.

Apparently reading the look on Minako's face, Tohru laughed. "Not convinced, huh? Okay, fair enough. I guess that's my job for tonight; helping you figure out how much you've been missing out on." Turning her around, he started leading her forward, and Minako could feel the push and shove of the crowd on all sides as they made their way through the room.

"Tell you what," said Tohru. "Why don't I start by buying you a drink?"

Minako shook her head. "I'm underage," she reminded him.

"So?" She could hear the shrug in Tohru's voice. "I'm not. See? Sometimes, it can be nice, having an older guy around."

Somehow, Minako didn't think that going out drinking really counted as the "being good" that Nanako had insisted on before they left. The idea of Tohru disappearing in a puff of smoke because he'd broken the rules was definitely an intriguing one, although Minako wasn't actually sure if drinking, especially since Tohru really was legal to do it, would constitute a broken rule. It was certainly against the rules for her, but, then again, she didn't have to worry about getting zapped back to the Velvet Room if she misbehaved.

"Come on," Tohru cajoled her. "You're so tense it's stressing me out. This is supposed to be fun, right?"

There was no way, thought Minako, that this could be fun unless she could find a way to stop thinking about all of the reasons that she shouldn't be doing it. Maybe Tohru was right, she decided. Maybe a drink would at least help her get through the rest of the evening.

"Okay," she said, relenting. "Yeah, that would be nice. Thank you."


	3. Two - December 15

**Author's Note: **All my jobs closed today! So did my school! I have no homework, no money, and local public transportation isn't running, so I will probably stay at home and write all day. What a treat for me.

I should mention that after reading this chapter, you will wonder if anybody could actually get this tipsy after a single drink. Yes, they definitely can. When I was just a little older than Minako, I remember distinctly having my first drink at a college cast party, where I got very tipsy very fast, mostly because of my inexperience with alcohol, and the fact that I'd forgotten to eat anything. So yes, this sort of thing does happen to real people.

Oh, and don't worry, we haven't lost crazy!Adachi forever. Love can change people, but not THAT much. Actually, we see him being crazy in the next chapter of this story, so stay tuned!

**Two – December 15**

It felt like only twenty minutes after Tohru handed her the drink that Minako began to realize why she'd never tried this before. There were a lot of unfamiliar sensations in both her mind and body, some of which were pleasant, but all of which were a little alarming. For one thing, the world was spinning. Well, no, she corrected herself internally, it wasn't exactly spinning. It was just that every time she moved her head, everything around her felt like it took a few extra seconds to catch up. If she'd been able to see what was going on, she was sure that it would have been easier for her, but as it was the room had turned into a very dark, dizzy whirl-i-gig that kept throwing off of her balance at odd moments.

Tohru's arm around her waist, Minako realized, was probably keeping her in a fully upright position. She hoped he hadn't noticed that, as they stood together in a far corner of the room, sipping their drinks and listening to the blaring of the music. Had it gotten louder, wondered Minako? It sounded louder to her now, although she could, for some reason, no longer make out all the words of the song. Not, of course, that it mattered. Dance music never had words worth paying attention to, anyway.

"Feeling better?" asked Tohru, with a hint of that condescending amusement in his voice that made Minako want to kick him. Deciding that was actually not a bad idea, she tried to kick him, missed, and stumbled forward directly into his arms.

"Wow," he laughed, "you're actually drunk. I had no idea you were such a lightweight…although, I probably should have guessed. You are pretty small."

"I'm not drunk," Minako informed him. "I'm just dizzy."

"Yeah?" asked Tohru. "Would you even know if you were drunk?"

That, thought Minako, was a reasonable question, and the answer to it was, of course, no. She'd never been drunk before, and she'd never even had a real drink before, but people always talked about how drinking was terrible for you, and she was sure that if getting drunk only meant getting a little bit dizzy, they wouldn't be adamant about not doing it. Therefore, she deduced, she couldn't be drunk. Besides, Tohru had been right. She did feel a little bit better, now. Things just weren't quite so awkward anymore.

"Everyone else is dancing," she told him.

Tohru sounded surprised. "Yeah, that's true. I mean, it is a club. Why, do you want to dance?"

Minako was not sure if she wanted to dance. The room already seemed to be dancing around her, just a little bit. Maybe that was what put her in the mood. "Ye-I don't know how," she said. "I…might bump into things. A lot." I usually do, she thought.

Tohru guided her out away from the wall a bit, and then put his other hand on her shoulder, pulling her in closer to him. "Hey, if you want to try, I'm game," he said. "Do you even know how?"

Minako thought about that. "I watched the girls at Club Escapade doing it a few times," she said. "So, um, maybe? Do you?"

"Who cares?" asked Tohru, with a grin in his voice. "It's not like you can see me, so I don't have to work too hard to impress you with my moves, right?"

Minako stepped on his toe on purpose, and then gave him a very innocent little smile, which made him laugh even more.

"I guess I'd better get used to getting stepped on," he sighed. "Something tells me you're going to be doing a lot of that tonight."

Minako let him readjust his hands, so that one of them was at the small of her back, and the other was just behind her shoulder. As he moved her on to the floor, she leaned in to him to help keep her balance, and felt his grip on her tighten slightly, then relax.

"Nah, this isn't gonna happen," he told her. "We can't move like this." Unexpectedly, he pulled her in much closer, and again Minako tread on his foot, although this time it had been a legitimate mistake. "This is how it's supposed to be."

They started to move together, which was uncomfortable and embarrassing for Minako at first, who was aware that, although this had apparently been her idea, she had no idea what she was really doing. Tohru spun her out once, and she couldn't seem to get herself to stop spinning in the right place, forcing Tohru to grab her around the waist to rein her back in.

"Oh," said Minako. "I'm…actually too blind for this."

"You're fine," muttered Tohru. There was something different about his voice when he said it, but the dizziness and confusion in Minako's mind made it hard for her to figure out just exactly that meant.

They stood pressed together for a while, trying their best to keep up with the music, and Minako felt herself flush with embarrassment as she wondered whether or not they were the only ones on the floor dancing quite this close. Was this really the way that it was supposed to be, or could they just not separate because Minako's eyes wouldn't let her dance on her own?

"Tohru," she began.

"What? What's wrong?" he asked, so quickly that she realized he was a bit on edge too.

Minako reached out and ran her fingers along the side of his face, trying to figure out what his expression looked like.

He laughed under his breath. "This again? Try not to put my eye out, okay?"

Minako frowned. "I can't," she informed him. "Your eyes are closed. Why are you dancing with your eyes closed?"

There was a moment of silence before Tohru answered. "Uh, good question," he said finally. "I don't know. Maybe so you don't stick your fingers in them."

"That," insisted Minako with perfect, alcohol-induced certainty "does not make any sense."

Her fingers crawled up to his forehead, where she played idly with a lock of hair for a moment before saying sweetly, "Your hairline is receding. Are you sure you're only thirty?"

"Hey!" exclaimed Tohru, surprised.

It was unclear which one of them actually started it, although Minako had the sneaking suspicion that, due to her uncertain, dizzy state, it might have been her. She certainly heard Tohru try to mumble something unintelligible as she kissed him, implying that he probably wasn't expecting it to happen, and therefore, it must have been her fault. She kissed him anyway, although it was only a moment before he pulled away from her.

"Wow," he murmured, "Okay, you're really drunk...we've been here before, remember? Didn't we learn anything the last time this happened?"

Minako shook her head at him. "Not guilty," she said. "The last time 'this happened,' it was your fault. You kissed me."

Tohru was still holding her, although now, for some reason, he was doing it very gently, as though unwilling to keep her any closer to him than he absolutely had to. "You remember that, huh?" he asked.

"Of course I do." Minako remembered it very well. She remembered what a wonderful kiss it had been, but she also remembered just how horribly everything had turned out when she'd discovered that Shinjiro had been watching the two of them the whole time. It was, she reminded herself, Tohru's fault that things had ended up all broken between Minako and Shinjiro, and normally she would have been furious at him for that. She had been furious at him only an hour ago. Somehow, now, it didn't feel quite so bad. What was that all about?

"So do I," agreed Tohru quietly. "I…" he stopped, hesitated, and then said, "You know, it gets pretty boring sitting all by myself in the Velvet Room, staring at the back of Igor's head all day…I end up thinking about that day a lot. All the time."

Minako became suddenly aware that Tohru's hands were trembling. "Aha!" she announced triumphantly. "See? You're shaking. You're drunk too!"

"Nah," mumbled Tohru. "I haven't been drinking booze…just water. It's…it is kinda warm in here, and…you know what, nevermind."

This time he kissed her, and Minako let him pull her back against him, resting her hands on his shoulders as his fingers wound themselves through her probably tangled hair. It was a long, slow, gentle kiss, and Minako expected any moment for Tohru to turn into the insistent, hungry man she'd felt the first time she'd kissed him, all hands and desperation. Part of her was almost looking forward to it, and that same part of her had the good graces to be slightly ashamed of that feeling.

Finally, he broke the kiss, although he didn't let go of her, muttering breathlessly, "Aw, man…curfew sucks. I mean, it really sucks. So much."

"What?" Minako honestly wasn't sure what to make of that. "Is that it?"

Tohru laughed. "Is what it? What, you want me to kiss you again? And here I thought you said you hated me."

"No, I mean…" Minako was having some trouble clearing her thoughts up enough to express exactly what she did mean. "Didn't you start buying me drinks in the first place so that you could get me drunk enough to…you know. Didn't you?"

"Uh, well…" Tohru was taken aback. "Okay, so maybe you aren't as drunk as I thought you were. Wait, you knew that the whole time, and you still went along with it? You are…really a strange kid. I don't know what to make of this one. Good job, you've got me stumped."

Minako leaned forward to try to continue where they'd left off, but Tohru shook his head and pushed her away. "No, I can't," he insisted.

"Why not?" asked Minako, now at least partially aware, if not much interested in the fact that the drink was having a pronounced effect on her decision-making process.

"Because," said Tohru, more seriously than she'd heard him speak the whole night, "You do amazing, crazy things to my head, and if we keep this up, I'm gonna end up breaking a rule and getting locked in the Velvet Room for the rest of eternity. I said it's not worth it, remember?"

Minako thought about that for a moment. "I think," she said, frowning, "that you're lying. I think you made up those rules so that I would come out with you. Igor doesn't really know what you do when you're out of the Velvet Room. How could he? You lied about it then, and you're lying about it now."

"I didn't lie about trying to escape," he told her. "If I try to leave without Nanako-chan's permission, I really do end up on the floor…and I think I really did have my wallet stolen. Maybe you're right, though, about the rest of it. Maybe that stuff wasn't true." He sighed. "Old habits, I guess?"

"Kiss me again," she told him.

"Well," muttered Tohru, "you are the 'guest,' right? And it is my job as the Velvet Rom attendant, to do whatever the 'guest' wants, I guess. Interesting loophole, there." He kissed her again, a little more intensely than he had before, and Minako wrapped her arms around his back to drag him closer against her.

"We'd better get out of here," he breathed. "It's getting late."

"I'm not running away this time," Minako insisted.

Tohru laughed, and brushed some hair quickly out of Minako's face. "No, you're right, I think I'm probably the one running now. You…really are something else. Tomorrow morning, you're gonna wake up with a hangover, you're gonna remember what just happened, and you're going to want me dead. Good thing you can't get into the Velvet Room by yourself anymore…"

He took her by the hand and started leading her away from the crowd, back towards the TV monitor where they'd originally come in. Minako realized that she was getting sleepy, now that she had a moment to spend thinking about it. How late was it, she wondered? Was it already eleven?

"Come on, Cinderella," muttered Tohru, preparing to lift Minako up to reach the TV screen. "Let's get you home before you turn into a pumpkin."

For some reason, Minako thought that was hilarious. "I'm not Cinderella," she giggled. "You're Cinderella!"


	4. Three - December 16

**Author's Note: **This chapter directly references the events that take place in another story of mine, called **Pianissimo.** It's a short one, but it might help with background. You can find it on my profile page if you're interested.

And now, for your reading pleasure, Minako realizes that alcohol is bad for you, and Adachi has lots of ANGST.

This chapter takes us right up until the events of the first chapter of **Piecekeeping**, which is finally posted! Huzzah! Okay, so now that the timelines are in sync, again, I will probably update one of these stories every day. I will probably alternate. **Piecekeeping** one day, **Messiah** the next, so on and so forth. Hopefully that will keep them running alongside each other very well. I'm trying to post them in such a way that you can, if you like, read them both and still follow the timeline properly.

Actually, I think the next three updates are to **Piecekeeping, **so you can definitely expect to see those tomorrow and Friday! Saturday, though, I have a date, so I'm taking it off. Thanks for your patience.

**Three – December 16**

Minako woke up suddenly when she realized that she was getting wet. Shaking herself and shivering, she felt around on the floor until she realized that, somehow, she was lying out on the pavement, while heavy, slushy, lumpy flakes of snow spattered down all over her face.

"Why…?" she asked of no one in particular, doing her best to sort out where on earth she was. What had happened? Had she been attacked? Why would she be alone in the middle of what sounded and felt like the Inaba shopping district? What time was it, anyway?

Her head was throbbing madly, and at first she began to worry that the shadows might be in the process of attacking her mind again. It took her a few moments to collect herself, and to understand that this wasn't a shadow-related headache. Shadow headaches felt different, sharper and more acute. This one was just a dull and banging pain at the front of her face, right above her eyes.

Then, suddenly, as the headache pounded against her brain, so did the dawning of realization.

"Oh. Ow!" Minako frowned. She had a hangover.

As it was her first ever hangover, and now she fervently hoped it would be the last, Minako spent a few moments letting herself dwell on that, and wondering why in the name of all that was holy anyone would ever voluntarily drink alcohol if this was what happened afterwards. Where had she been drinking alcohol last night, anyway? She'd gone to the Velvet Room with Nanako, and they'd met Tohru, there, and then…

"Shit!" shouted Minako. She didn't know if there was anyone around to hear her, and in that moment, she didn't care.

Everything swam back in a brutal blur of horrible hindsight. She'd gone to a club with Tohru, where he'd offered her a drink, and they'd started dancing, and then that had led to…

"No, not again," she moaned. How, just when she'd started to get the hang of life in Inaba, had she managed to get caught up with him again?

And yet, she realized, it could have been so much worse. If she remembered correctly, and she was sickeningly sure that she did, then she'd wanted the two of them to go farther last night. Tohru had refused. No, that couldn't be right. Tohru Adachi, famous for his inability to control his darker instincts, had refused to touch her?

Was she really that unattractive? Had he just being toying with her the whole time? Was this a part of another one of his twisted mind games?

No, she reminded herself firmly, that was not the point. The point was that she had somehow made it out without losing too much of her dignity, and that it would never, ever be allowed to happen again. No matter what her heart thought it wanted, no matter what her darker instincts were telling her to do, she was not going back into that Velvet Room for love or money.

Nearby, a clock struck the hour, revealing to Minako that it was already twelve o'clock in the afternoon. Apparently, Tohru had left her lying there outside the door to the Velvet Room. Seriously? He couldn't have managed to get her back to her house? She must have fallen asleep…how embarrassing.

A cold flake of snow dropped on to Minako's bare leg. Startled, she reached down and felt around to try and figure out just exactly what she was wearing. It was…very short, very thin, and definitely not appropriate for anything that she could possibly find herself doing today. Now that she took the time to think about it, she was also absolutely freezing.

Desperately hoping that no one she knew happened along to see her, Minako fled full-tilt in the direction that she thought led to home. She had places to be, things to do, and she could not do any of them in this terrifyingly tiny dress.

**Meanwhile, inside the TV world…**

Tohru Adachi sat on the floor of the second level of Magatsu Inaba, and watched the nauseating colors that painted this place that had come from somewhere inside him.

Uh oh, he thought to himself. That hadn't exactly gone the way he'd planned.

It had all started out very straightforward. He had needed a ticket out of this place, and Minako was one of the only people who he knew would be able to take him. The fact that she was a nice looking girl hadn't hurt, either. They'd made it to the club, he'd gotten her a drink, and then…what had happened? Something had gone horribly wrong, and not for the first time, either.

He'd been thinking about her for months, ever since they'd shared that kiss outside the Velvet Room. It had gotten so bad that he knew he needed to find a way to get her out of his system, and this date at the club had seemed like the perfect way. He'd have her there, would get what he wanted from her, would find out what it was like to be with her, and then he'd feel better. All of the crazy images of her in his head would finally leave him alone.

Last night, he'd had his chance, and he'd blown it.

Somehow, in that moment, when she'd kissed him like that, all of the things he'd been trying not to think about had come flooding back. The way she'd called him her "hero" once, and the kiss she'd given him at the riverbank. She treated him like he was still alive inside, even though he knew that so many parts of who he'd once been were already dead. He'd just wanted to stand there and keep her close to him forever, to let her touch him and feed his hunger for real, tender human contact. It was only when she was near him that Adachi ever felt that there was any truth behind that naive shit that Yu Narukami had once said.

"You can still start over," Yu had told him, just before dragging him out of Magatsu Inaba and into the waiting arms of the local police force.

Adachi hadn't believed it then, and he didn't really believe it now, but he wanted to. He wanted to believe it more than he wanted anything else in this fucked-up, twisted world full that he'd made for himself. By himself, there was no way out, but maybe with her...

Sometimes, Adachi imagined her looking out at him with Hinata's eyes, the gentle way Hinata had looked at him before she'd realized how little he was really worth. When they'd been together, Hinata had gazed at him with this little half-smile on her face, and Adachi had gotten lost in those eyes, and the way they made him feel like there was a future to look forward to.

After that, after Hinata had realized how little he really meant to her, Adachi had understood that there was no future worth having. If she couldn't see him as the man he wanted to be, then how could he see himself that way? Why should he try? He wasn't worth the effort, and neither was anyone else. He'd wanted to prove to himself and the world that Hinata had been right, that they were all worthless and that it didn't matter what they did. It didn't matter what he did. It never had, not until he'd discovered the power of persona, and had understood that there was no more use in having dreams He'd turned those dreams instead into self-destructive nightmares, and then he'd brought them to life, because at least that way he could keep reminding himself that he was worthless, just enough to make sure that he never forgot it again.

For some stupid, nonsensical reason, Adachi couldn't stand the idea of that girl seeing him the way he saw himself. He loved the fact that she was blind. When she looked at him, he could feel himself disappear into whomever it was that she'd rather imagine. It was the most liberating thing he'd ever experienced. Maybe that was why when she'd asked him to show her the darker parts of him, he couldn't do it. All those desires had just faded away into whatever he was begging her to believe in. He wanted her to keep seeing it, whatever it was, so that she could believe enough for the both of them.

He admired her, too. She was beautiful, in the way that a girl that age could sometimes be beautiful just by being too innocent to understand the different ways she could make herself ugly inside. She was braver than he had ever managed to be, sticking her neck out for people that Adachi knew probably never bothered to love her as much as she deserved. He hated her for that, because it was idiotic and annoying, but it was also wonderfully stubborn and fascinating in a strange, contradictory way.

"Goddamnit," he muttered. He couldn't get the way she'd kissed him out of his mind. Every few minutes he'd imagine it again, and would feel it again, and would want it again. She melted him inside, made him feel things, and he hated to love it. It haunted him.

Adachi was in trouble now, he knew. She mattered to him, so much it was painful, and he wasn't having any luck talking himself out of it.

Now that something mattered again, all bets were off. He didn't know what to believe anymore.

From behind him, Adachi heard a sudden movement, and he spun around to face a Free Bambino, an annoying little shadow shaped like a child with a horrible high-pitched cry that made the hairs stand up on the back of Adachi's neck.

Wonderful, he thought. Finally, a way to vent all of these crazy feelings.

"Persona," he muttered, and Magatsu Izanagi slunk out of the depths of his soul to take one baleful, disdainful look at the shadow in front of him.

Then, Adachi shot the shadow. He shot it repeatedly, unnecessarily, enjoying the feeling of his fingers clenching on the grip of the gun as he nailed the shadow into the ground with a barrage of bullets. He shot it out of a need to exercise control, control that he wanted but didn't have over his life, himself, and the way he thought about that girl.

As it exploded into red and black shadow essence, he turned around and walked away. "Tch," he muttered, "Boring."

Even that hadn't felt like anything after all. Everything was empty.

Minako's face was still hovering in front of his mind, right behind his eyes. What would she have thought, he wondered, if she'd seen that?

**Not long afterwards, at the Junes food court…**

Minako and Yu waited patiently outside the electronics department. Yosuke and the rest of the investigation team had gone in to scope out the Velvet Room, leaving Minako and Yu, as usual, without anything useful to do. For once, Minako didn't mind. She had a lot of things to think about.

"You look stressed," Yu told her. "What's up? Trouble at work?"

"Uh, no." replied Minako. If there was anyone, she knew, who she could actually talk to about this, it would be Yu. He and Junpei were, hopefully, the only people that actually knew what had happened between her and Tohru during the previous year, and she had every intention of keeping it that way for as long as she possibly could.

Then again, now Nanako probably had an inkling of what was going on as well. More than inkling, in fact. Nanako had almost set the two of them up! This was getting out of hand. How many people could she reasonably expect to keep this secret for her? The truth was just dying to get out, and that would be the end of every significant relationship Minako had begun in Inaba since she'd arrived.

"Do you want to talk about it?" pressed Yu.

Yes, thought Minako. "No," she said out loud, "No, it's nothing, thanks. I'm just tired, I guess."

That was possibly the lamest excuse she could have come up with, she knew, but Yu seemed to accept it. "Okay," he told her. "But, just keep in mind…if there's something bothering you, you don't have to keep it to yourself. We're never gnona get through this thing unless we're willing to do it together."

"Yeah, I know," said Minako, biting her lip. "Thanks. Um, if there's anything to tell, I'll let you know."

There wouldn't be, she reminded herself, anything to tell ever again. This was, undeniably, the very last time.


	5. Four - December 17

**Author's Note: ** I've got a few important things to say today!

First of all, I had to re-write sections of chapter three of this story. Adachi's inner monologue just needed to be redone. Please, and I ask you as a writer in need, before you read this chapter, go back and re-read chapter three, just so that you can get a better sense of the flow of the story. It would make me so very happy if you would do that.

Also, I am very excited, because the fantastic and talented **Supernova23** let me work on a story with him! It's called **Crosses to Bear**, and he posted it last night! Please check it out, if you have the chance, and please make sure to read Chapter two, because that's the part that he wrote, and it's really quite brilliant.

And finally, last but not least, I am delighted to see that so many wonderful people are reading and following my story! I know you're very busy, so no pressure of course, but if you have the time, I'd love to see a review or a comment from you. I'm not much good at writing romance, so your feedback is welcome and appreciated! If you're enjoying it, please do let me know! If there's something you'd like to see in this story that I haven't done, I'd love to hear that as well.

**Four – December 17**

Minako was already seated at her desk when she heard the familiar grumbling and stomping that always heralded the arrival of her boss, Ryotaro Dojima. He slumped down into the chair just across from hers, and Minako wordlessly handed him the cup of coffee she'd prepared only minutes before.

There was a long silence, followed by a faint slurping sound, and then Dojima's sigh of relief. "You're a godsend, Arisato," he remarked. Minako tried to hide a smile.

"And you , sir," she murmured, careful to keep her tone as respectful as possible under the circumstances, "are a caffeine addict."

"Damn right," mumbled Dojima. "After the day we're in for today, you'll probably be one too." He sighed. "You ready for some bad news?"

Minako, whose life recently had been one long, incessant string of bad news, nodded. Dojima took a deep breath.

"We're starting to think," he told her gravely, "that we may have another serial killer on our hands. Last night, some poor guy coming out of the drug store found the body of a high school student lying on the side of the road. She'd been dead for at least two hours. The marks on her neck were pretty similar to the ones we found on that schoolteacher last week, so the assumption of the higher-ups should be pretty obvious."

Minako opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. At least one part of her was trying very hard not to panic. It was impossible, she thought. Why would the murders be starting up again now? There was no way that it could have anything to do with Tohru, who was safely locked up inside the Velvet Room, wasn't he?

She was uncomfortably conscious of the fact that he wasn't entirely "locked up." In fact, juts the other night, they'd been making out at a local club. Had he gotten away from her that night, and done something horrible? How could she know? After all, she couldn't see him. It would have been easy for him to sneak away from her in that crowd. Not, of course, that she could remember a moment when he hadn't been touching her somehow. Minako felt her face flush as she thought about it.

"Luckily," Dojima was saying, apparently and mercifully oblivious to the turmoil taking over inside Minako's head, "unlike the murders we had two years ago, it looks like there's some logic to these. This guy's got a pretty classic MO, one that shouldn't be too hard to trace."

Minako perked up a bit when he said that. That, at least sounded promising. Daring to hope, she asked, "What sort of MO?"

"He strangles women with some kind of fabric or something," Dojima informed her. "Maybe a belt, or a tie."

The world lurched sickeningly around Minako again.

Dojima must have seen the alarm on her face, because he suddenly asked her, "Hey, are you okay? Maybe I should have been more sensitive with this stuff. After all, you are a girl. Still, I have to tell you, if you're going to have a future in this department, then you're gonna need to show a little more guts."

Minako nodded distractedly. "Yes, sir," she managed. "I'm fine, sir. Um…excuse me a moment, please? I need to make a personal call."

**Later that day, in the Velvet Room…**

"Hello Igor! Hello, Adachi-san!" called Nanako, walking into the Velvet Room, still wearing her backpack from school. "Um, excuse me, but, Adachi-san, are you busy? Minako's waiting outside, and she wants to see you! She says it's important."

Adachi stood up so fast that his chair fell over. Aware that Nanako and Igor were now both staring at him, he cleared his throat and did his best to sound disinterested as he said "Yeah, I guess so. Sounds more fun than hanging around here, anyway."

As Nanako led him out through the Velvet Room door, Adachi reflected on just how good this girl was. It had been almost two whole days since they'd kissed at the club, and he'd been sure that she would come running in to ask him about it, or at least to yell at him as soon as she'd woken up and remembered what she'd done the night before. Instead, she'd left him pretending not to dwell on it, until it was he, instead of her that was chomping at the bit for a chance to have things out with her. It had been all he could do not to start begging an eight year old kid just to let him out for a few minutes so that he could track her down. Adachi had been sure that, being the only one of them who was still sober, he'd had the upper hand when he'd dropped her off outside the Velvet Room. He'd changed his mind when, after two days of hearing nothing from her, he'd had to spend twenty minutes just trying to focus on the little tasks like buttoning his shirt that morning. She was driving him insane.

Just as Nanako had said, Minako was waiting for them in the shopping district, standing against the wall across from the door. She was still dressed in her working clothes, meaning she'd spent the day at the police station. Adachi had always thought professional wear looked good on her. Without thinking about it, he ran a self-conscious hand through his hair, then realized how pointless that was, and laughed a derisive little laugh.

Minako looked up when he laughed. "Oh," she said, there you are."

Something about her tone didn't sound right. She was way more nervous and uncomfortable than he'd expected her to be, even in light of what had happened between them.

"Decided that you missed me after all, huh?" asked Adachi.

Minako frowned, and took a deep breath. "Adachi-san," she said, "I need to ask you something."

Here it comes, he thought. Now, he knew, she was going to ask him about the kiss, and it suddenly occurred to him that for all the fixating he'd done over the past two days, he still wasn't sure how he was going to answer her. He should play it off, he knew, make a joke about it, try to grab back that upper hand. It was hard when she looked so good in that skirt, though. He wanted to take her in his arms right here and now.

"Come on," he began. "Do we really have to do the formal thing? I mean, it's not like we haven't…"

"Was it you who killed the high schooler behind Shiroku pub last night" interrupted Minako. "And the schoolteacher last week?" Be honest with me. I've told you before; I'm very good with people. I'll know if you're lying."

Adachi stopped talking. He stopped thinking about the way her legs filled out that skirt. It was like the air had just all been sucked out of his lungs.

"What schoolteacher?" he asked. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Minako bit her lip for a moment, then nodded. "That doesn't matter," she told him. "You don't' need the details. Just answer my question, yes or no."

A cold trickle of acid ran down the back of Adachi's neck. Of all the people in the world, he thought, of everyone he'd ever met, this question cut him the deepest coming from her. There was nothing on her face right now that resembled the expression she'd given him at the riverbank, when she'd told him that he was definitely and undeniably human, despite both his actions and his protests. Something inside of him that had been building up for two days suddenly wrenched and snapped painfully.

"No," he muttered, and it came out as almost a snarl. "That's got nothing to do with me. Unlike that asshole kid, Kubo, I don't take credit for shit that other people do."

There was a brief, tense moment before Minako breathed out a short sigh of relief. Adachi watched her shoulders slump slightly and realized that she'd been holding her breath.

"What," he asked, too angry and disappointed to bother keeping the bitterness out of his speech. "Did you want me to say that I did it? I guess that would have worked out pretty well for you after all. You could have hauled me in to the station and showed Dojima-san just how well you managed to solve your first case. Sorry to ruin your plans, but it wasn't me."

"Don't be ridiculous," mumbled Minako. "That would have been horrible."

"Why?" insisted Adachi. "Why would you care one way or another if I did it? At least that would make sense, right? Once a murderer, always a prime suspect. And how do you know that I'm not lying? I'm a pretty damn good liar. I had your friends fooled for a long time."

Unexpectedly, Minako looked straight in his direction and gave him her best attempt at a glare. "Stop acting like a child," she told him. "You're not lying. I told you, I'm good at reading people. And we both know why it matters to me. If it didn't matter, I wouldn't have come here just to ask."

"Yeah," muttered Adachi. "I guess that makes sense." His insides were beginning to unclench, very slightly.

"I believe you," said Minako, as though she felt he needed the confirmation.

Adachi shrugged. "Why?" he asked, with a desperate little laugh. "I've never given you anything to believe."

"There isn't a 'why,' insisted Minako. "I'm not sure because I want to be. I just…I just can tell. Maybe it's leftover from my persona ability. I can figure out who people really are."

"So?" asked Adachi sarcastically, knowing that he was pushing this farther than he really wanted to. "What do you get from me? Can you see what I 'really am?"

Minako frowned at him. "You're really scared, and you're really angry," she informed him. "You are not really a monster. Does that answer your question?"

It did. Adachi was amazed by how effectively those few words relaxed the horrible, ugly things that were beginning to surface on the face of his soul.

"Let me take you to dinner tonight," he said.

Minako shook her head. "Please," she told him, "let's not start all of that again. You got what you wanted when we went out to the club, didn't you? You made me look like an idiot. You won that round, all right? I give up. Just leave me alone. I'm not going to play this game of yours anymore."

At one point, Adachi knew, it had been a game. He'd wanted to see how far he could take her, and whether or not he could break down and destroy the shining idealistic image of the world that she still had in her head. It had just been something else for him to do to pass the time, another challenge and another strike against the naïve injustice that the world always seemed to have in store for him.

Now, things were different. Something was giving out on him, and Adachi was exposed and unable to walk away.

"I can't just leave you alone," he told her honestly. "It's not gonna happen. You wanna be a good Samaritan? Feel like saving a soul today, blind girl? Come out to dinner with me. You don't want to know what it'll do to me if you say no."

At first, Minako didn't seem to know how to respond to that. Adachi could see the frustration and the uncertainty in her face, and was slightly proud of himself for not feeling even a little bit guilty about it. She bit her lip, ran a hand through her hair, then paused for a moment and thought. Adachi could see the epiphany strike on her all too transparent face.

"I'll make you a deal," she told him.

"Yeah?" he asked her. "What kind of a deal?"

I'll go to dinner with you," Minako told him, "if you'll help me solve this murder case."

Adachi raised an eyebrow. "Not that I wasn't a great detective," he told her, "but I don't' think Dojima-san would be too happy to let me consult on this one. I mean…there are a lot of problems with that idea."

Minako shook her head. "I don't want you to consult with him," she insisted. "I want you to consult with me. I want to know what makes people want to kill, what happens in a murderer's head. I want to understand what it feels like to live that way. Maybe that'll help me catch the killer. We have to get him before this goes any farther, and before anyone else has to die. It's the one thing you can do to prove to me that I'm not wrong about you."

Adachi did not want to have that conversation with her. There were few things he hated more than the idea of letting Minako in to the parts of himself that she'd spent so long looking away from. He craved to see her look at him with that innocent lack of condemnation on her face that he knew he'd never see again if he told her the things she apparently now wanted to know. He was about to lose that look forever.

At the same time, if he said no, and she left him for good, he'd never see it again anyway.

Adachi sighed.

"Fine," he muttered. "Okay, you're on."


	6. Five - December 17

**Author's Note: **A head's up for my readers!

I've gotten several comments from you about how "sweet" lovestruck Adachi is…and I'm glad you're enjoying him! Still, remember, Adachi hasn't changed as a person. Although being in love might make him significantly more vulnerable, and perhaps unhealthily attached, it doesn't change the fact that he has a lot of darker things going on in his head. We'll get lovestruck Adachi for a couple more chapters, but please be warned that when he does snap, it's all kinds of crazy and destructive.

Dag actually helped me a bit with working out the dialogue in this one. He stopped in the middle of arranging a song for our MDRF singing group just to chat with me about character motivations and the way to structure the scene.

I am working on a wonderful production of Shakespeare's "Hamlet' right now, with the BaH Shakespeare Company. If you look closely enough, it seems that Adachi and Hamlet are starting to share some character flaws…or maybe they shared them all along, and I'm only now beginning to realize it.

The next **Piecekeeping** update is in the works, but my eyes are starting to give out, so I'll have to post it another day. I can't check it for typos until I get some sleep…

**Five – December 17**

This time, Minako insisted on picking out the location for their "date." She felt that she might actually be able to get something useful out of this evening, and with that in mind she did not want to have to spend the whole time panicking about potentially being caught out with Tohru.

Ultimately, she settled on Shiroku pub, mostly because Yu had told her, with information gleaned from the days when he'd worked at the bar, that there were almost never more than a couple of patrons there in the middle of the week. Hopefully, she thought, they'd be able to sort of blend into the background in Shiroku, and not attract too much unwanted attention.

"Huh," said Tohru, as they walked into the pub. "Feeling nostalgic all of a sudden? Although, last time we were here, you never actually came inside."

That honestly took Minako aback for a moment. She hadn't even thought about the fact that, essentially, she and Tohru had met for the first time outside Shiroku. What, she wondered, would life have been like today if she'd never walked past the pub that night? Shinjiro might still be around, and they might still have a chance at the life together they'd been picturing and hoping for. On the other hand, if she'd never met Tohru, then she, Yu, and all of her friends might be dead now, having been defeated long ago by the rampages of the snake shadow in the Velvet Room.

"Not exactly what I meant when I said we should get dinner," continued Tohru. "This…isn't the most fun place to take a girl out on a date."

Minako shook her head at him. "We're not on a date," she reminded him. "This is business."

"Right," sighed Tohru. "I was sort of trying to forget about that."

They grabbed a couple of seats at the bar, and took a few minutes to look over the frankly unimpressive menu. Minako had snacked a bit on her way over from the station, so luckily she wasn't too hungry.

Tohru, on the other hand, ordered three different things.

"Hungry?" Minako asked him, after they'd given their order to the kid who was acting as combination waiter and dishwasher.

He laughed a little self consciously. "Yeah, you could say that. I think it's been a month since I had anything to eat."

Minako was horrified. "What? Really? You mean, they don't feed you in the Velvet Room?" Come to think of it, she wondered, was there even any food in there at all? She didn't remember Elizabeth or Theodore ever having to eat anything. Maybe whatever kind of beings they had been just never got hungry, but…Tohru was a person!

"Feeling sorry for me? I guess that's sort of a good thing. I'll take it." said Tohru. "I don't get hungry when I'm in the Velvet Room. Once I'm in the real world, though, then I'm starving. Don't ask me why, I gave up trying to guess."

"Hmm." Minako frowned. "I don't think time passes the same way in the Velvet Room as it does out here."

"And that explains a lot," muttered Tohru. "Man, I wish I'd known that before I agreed to being stuck in there."

"You didn't have much of a choice," Minako reminded him. "It was either that, or going back to face Dojima-san. He might have killed you."

"Nah, not him," Tohru said scornfully. "He's all about justice, and mercy. Probably would have been better off today if he'd just shot me the first time around."

Minako paused for a moment. "Who would have been better off?'" she asked. "You, or him?"

For some reason, Tohru didn't answer the question.

Minako reached into her work bag, and pulled out a notebook and a pen, laying them out on the bar in front of her. At the sight of them Tohru groaned.

"Whoa, who are you, Nancy Drew?" he asked. "You…can't be serious."

Ignoring him, Minako pulled the cap off of the pen, and poised it over the pad, thinking for a moment. "Um," she began, "okay, so I think I'll start by asking you a few questions."

"Jeez," muttered Tohru.

Minako opened her mouth, and then closed it again. Somewhat to her embarrassment, she was having trouble figuring out where to go from here. She wanted Tohru to explain to her what it was that made people murder other people, and how it was that she could find a murderer if she needed to. What should she look for? What kind of person could turn into a murderer? When she'd suggested asking him, it had made so much sense in her head, but now, sitting here, uncertain what to ask, she felt increasingly stupid. It wasn't that simple, was it? What was she going to say, something like 'So, what makes you want to kill people?" It sounded ridiculous just rattling around in her mind.

"Um," she stammered.

Tohru sighed a long-suffering sigh. "I really do have to do everything, huh? Look, I've got a better idea. I'm a detective, right? At least I never lied about that."

"You're a terrible detective," murmured Minako. "Yu and Yosuke told me all about it."

"I'm a damn amazing detective," Tohru corrected her. "I know how not to get caught. Takes a good detective to be a good criminal, right?"

Minako had no reasonable response to that. As far as she remembered, Yu and Yosuke had always described the man they'd known as Adachi as being a bumbling, incompetent buffoon. Minako had seen pieces of that person in him, especially in the moments when he seemed so nervous around her that he didn't know quite what to do with his hands. She'd never considered the fact that Tohru might have actually been any good at his job.

He must have seen those thoughts in her face, because Tohru laughed mirthlessly. "Yeah, but don't feel too bad," he told her, somewhat insincerely. "I get that all the time."

"So…" began Minako.

"So," interrupted Tohru, "why don't you start by telling me what you know. Then we can figure out what I know. Okay?"

"O-okay," said Minako, aware that she had now lost control of a situation that she'd been so completely on top of only moments before. "Um, what I know…" she tried to remember exactly what Dojima had told her. What sort of information was really important in a case like this?

"Wow," said Tohru. "At this rate, you're going to be Dojima-san's coffee girl for the rest of your miserable life. Come on, it's not that hard. Tell me about the victims, maybe."

Bristling at his condescension, Minako cleared her throat. "Okay, two weeks ago," she began, fumbling around in the back of her mind for the actual facts of the case, "a first grade teacher named Akane Maruyama was found-!"

"How old?" asked Tohru, interrupting her.

Minako stopped. "What?" she asked.

"How old was the teacher?" Tohru repeated.

"I…think she was twenty six." Minako tried to remember. "Is that important?"

"Maybe. Go on," Tohru encouraged her.

Minako picked up where she'd left off. "Akane Maruyama," she tried again. "was found dead down by the riverbank at four o'clock in the morning."

Tohru made a thoughtful noise in his throat. "Who found her?" he asked.

Minako had to think about that one. "I don't know," she admitted. "Someone…who was out walking around four o'clock, I guess. Maybe a jogger?"

"You're gonna have to do better than that," insisted Tohru. "What about the other one?"

This, thought Minako, was not working out at all the way she'd planned. She'd rushed over here, determined to force Tohru to admit whether or not he'd had anything to do with the murders. Once she'd decided that he hadn't, she'd been so relieved that she apparently hadn't bothered to think through the rest of what had, at the time, seemed like a brilliant idea.

"The second one was a high school student," Minako went on. "Hinata Nakamura, seventeen."

To Minako's surprise, as soon as she said the girl's name, Tohru sucked in a sharp breath. She waited, expecting him to say something, but instead he sat there in silence for a while.

"What?" she finally asked him. "What's wrong?"

"Nah, it's nothing," he muttered. "Weird coincidence, that's all. Anyway. Shoot."

Minako wondered about that. She tried not to ask herself whether or not his exclamation had been suspicious. She'd already decided that he had nothing to do with this, hadn't she? She had to pick a story and stick to it. "An old local grocer named Nobu Kimura found her right here, in the alley behind Shiroku. He said he was coming home from having a drink with friends, but as far as we know, there weren't any 'friends' with him at the time."

Before Tohru had a chance to say anything in response to that, the food arrived, and Minako tried not to be too impatient while he went hungrily to work on his dinner. If he really hadn't eaten in a month, she thought, then three dishes might not be enough. Where was the money coming from, anyway, to pay for all this? Was it Igor's money? Elizabeth and Theodore had never seemed to be lacking in funds. Did they get a weekly stipend, or something, for "working" in the Velvet Room? Could they just make money appear, by magic? Was it secret "persona" money?

"Is that all you've got?" asked Tohru, in between bites. "That's…not a lot to go on."

"I'm not exactly working on the investigation," Minako reminded him. "I'm just the assistant."

"Obviously." Tohru chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "Both women, huh?" he asked finally. "Young women, too…heh. How can you be sure they didn't deserve it?"

That question left Minako at a complete loss. He wasn't serious, was he? He must, she knew, just be trying to get a rise out of her. Her best bet was to just move on and pretend that he hadn't said anything at all.

Unfortunately, Minako couldn't bring herself to do that. "Why would you ask something like that?" she demanded. "What kind of a horrible question-?"

"Oh, don't play innocent," insisted Tohru, are there was harshness to his tone that Minako hadn't heard since before their time together at the club. "You know how bad women can get. You've got a little bit of that in you, too. The way you teased me at the riverbank, with that blind girl game of yours…its fun, isn't it? It's fun to make somebody want you. It feels good to have the control. I get it."

Minako could not deny that. She wanted to deny it. She wanted to lose her temper and find a drink to throw in Tohru's face, but the fact was that, at least about her, he wasn't wrong.

"Maybe," continued Tohru, with a cold, hard little shrug in his voice, "maybe some guy got tired of being jerked around. He'd had enough of getting messed with, getting looked at like he was some good for nothing piece of shit, so…he shot them."

"They…they were strangled," Minako corrected him, mostly just to fill the silence. An icy chill had just swept across her shoulder blades. "And they didn't deserve it. Nobody deserves to be…to be thrown away like that. Nobody."

"Yeah?" demanded Tohru bitterly. "Nobody deserves it, huh? What about someone like me? Don't I deserve to die for what I did? Nobody would lose sleep over it, that's for sure."

"I would," said Minako, before she'd had a chance to think about whether or not she wanted to voice that sentiment out loud.

There was a long moment of silence. Minako could feel Tohru's eyes focused on hers.

"You'd get over it," he assured her eventually, but, for just a moment, his voice held a little bit more warmth than it had before. "Women always do."

Of course, Minako thought. People were designed to get over things. That's the only way they managed to survive. If anything, it sounded to her like Tohru was the one who hadn't been able to "get over it."

"Is that what happened to you?" she asked suddenly, unaware that she was even thinking the question until it came out of her mouth. "Did you get your heart broken by some woman, and now you're just ready to kill all of us for what that one person did?"

Tohru laughed a quiet, miserable laugh. "What if I am?" he asked her.

"If you are, then I think you're an idiot," Minako informed him, unsure of "idiot" was really a strong enough word to express how she felt about that. "Blaming the whole world for what happened with just one person…that's incredibly stupid. I think you're a coward who needs to figure out how to move on."

She had expected Tohru to get angry when she said that, but he didn't. Instead, she heard him lay his fork carefully down by the side of his plate, and turns lightly in his seat to face her.

"Oops," he said sarcastically. "Seems kinda too late for that now, huh?"


	7. Six - December 17

**Author's Note: **Hello my favorite readers! Things are going to start picking up pretty fast in this story. This chapter is pretty relaxed, but in the next few chapters after this one, there are all sorts of exciting things that I am eager to share.

And now, off I go to work, and then to finish the **Piecekeeping** update! That probably won't be up until after I get off of work, but it'll definitely be up tonight, so stay tuned!

**Six – December 17**

Adachi had been expecting anger. He could have dealt with Minako's anger, with her white-hot denial of everything he said. She would, he was sure, go off on a tirade about truth, beauty, and the injustice of it all, and would eventually end up in a condemnation of anything and everything she mistakenly believed he stood for. Not, of course, that he bothered to stand for anything. Why waste the effort?

Of course, she didn't do any of that. Instead, she just sat there with a look of distaste and disappointment on her face, as though the subject was too disgusting for her to bother with.

Aw, hell, thought Adachi. For some reason, that cut him, in a way that any naïve, idiotic protestations couldn't have managed to do.

"So?" asked Minako, after a moment of laden silence. "Tell me about her."

Adachi just stared. "Huh? About who?"

"About your girlfriend," clarified Minako. "What was she like?"

Now, it was Adachi's turn to get angry. "Forget it," he snarled. "You know, I'm getting kinda sick of being your goddamn science experiment."

Minako was unperturbed. "The experiment's over," she informed him. "I know why you did what you did. Now I want to know more about you. You said you wanted to go on a date, right? So, tell me about yourself. That's what we'd do on a date. Tell me about your girlfriend. That might help me understand."

For some reason, the idea of her wanting to "understand" him made him feel a little bit sick. For all that she said that the experiment was over, she wasn't treating him like a person anymore. Now he was just a case study in how to not become a monster. He was aware, of course, that lots of people thought of him like that. The local news aired programs all the time, focused around topics like "how to protect your children from running with the wrong crowd," and "the problem of corruption in society." For some reason, his picture always seemed to end up on those programs, which was annoying, because it was a waste of time trying to lock him into a stereotypical murderer's box like that. There wasn't just one reason that people suddenly woke up one day and realized that life wasn't sacred anymore. There wasn't some easily identifiable cause. It was a little bit of everything.

"No thanks," he muttered sarcastically. "I think I'll pass."

Unexpectedly, Minako reached over and put her hand on top of his, in an almost childlike gesture of comfort that made his treacherous heart skip a beat.

"Please?" she asked. "I want to know."

Adachi seethed inwardly at his inability to say no to her.

"Fine," he muttered. "What do you want me to say? It was a long time ago."

"Did you love her very much?" asked Minako.

Adachi laughed. "That's it? That's what you're trying to get from me? Some kind of proof that I'm not as bad as I look, huh? What do you think, blind girl. If I was in love, would that make all of this okay?"

"Did you love her very much?" repeated Minako patiently.

"I don't know," he muttered. "It's a dumbass question, anyway. Love's just a greeting card excuse for people to act like fools."

Minako wasn't giving up, however. "Why won't you answer my question?" she insisted.

Tohru could feel the sweat starting to collect on the back of his neck. "Why the hell you want to know so bad?" he asked.

"What are you so scared of?" retorted Minako.

"What makes you think I'm scared?" asked Tohru.

Suddenly, Minako laughed. "We're playing questions," she said. "You know, that game where you answer every question with another question? It's a drama club game. I learned it in school."

"Heh," mumbled Adachi. "Yeah, I guess we are. In that case, I win. The last thing you said wasn't a question."

" Okay," continued Minako. "If you want to play like that, then I have a better question. Why is everything a game to you? If you give me a real answer this time, I'll let you win."

Adachi smiled, but it was a bitter, miserable smile. "You said it," he told her with a shrug. "You can win a game. Might as well turn the world into something you can win. Gives me something to shoot for."

"And if you lose?" Minako pressed him.

Gesturing around the bar with one lazy hand, Adachi grimaced. "Then you're a loser. Nobody wants to be a loser."

"And then," said Minako, "you try again, right? New game?"

Again, Adachi gave her an angry little laugh. "Nope," he told her. "Not this time."

For some reason, all Adachi could hear in the back of his mind was Yu Narukami telling him "You can still start over," as he watched Minako staring sightlessly but thoughtfully at the stained Shiroku floorboards.

When she finally did speak, it was distantly, as though she was still thinking about something else even while the words were piling out of her mouth.

"I think we should do this again," she said. "I mean, we should talk about the murders. I need to get more information about what happened from Dojima-san, but I'll come back when I know more, and we can try to figure it out."

"Whatever," shrugged Adachi. "Sure, fine. Not like I have anything better to do."

He paid the bill, and watched her walk out of the bar in front of him, remembering the time that he'd seen her there first, on that night when some weird instinct had made him pull her out of the way of an oncoming car, only to lead her down to the riverbank for what he'd thought was going to be an interesting bit of fun.

Why, he wondered, had he let her go that night? How come he was struggling to let go of her, now? This was definitely getting interested, but it wasn't fun anymore.

They went together to the Velvet Room door, before Minako turned around and started heading back towards home.

"Goodnight," she told him. "I'll come tomorrow so we can touch base about the case."

Then she was gone, and Adachi stood there, feeling like a sap, wishing someone would put him out of his misery. It was sickeningly clear, he decided, who the loser was here.

**December 18, at the police station…**

Minako was several hours later than usual that day, having spent the whole morning gathering information.

"Dojima-san!" she announced, laying a bundle of papers in front of him on his desk, almost the moment after he sat down. "I did some research on the case, sir!"

"Uh…you did?" Dojima seemed surprised and still partially asleep. Minako wondered if he'd been up all night at the station again. "What…what the hell is all this?"

"It's a list of names and addresses," she informed him, "of people in the neighborhoods surrounding the places where the two victims were found. The ones in red ink are people that I think it would be worth looking into as suspects. Most of them have suffered from marital or relationship trouble in the past several weeks, according to reports of several neighbors."

For a few minutes, Dojima didn't say anything. Minako tried to keep herself looking helpful and attentive, rather than impatient and panicky as she heard him leafing through the sheets she'd spent so much time writing up. Finally, he laid them down on the table and sighed heavily.

"Do us both a favor," he said, "and don't pull shit like this. I don't know where you're getting this stuff, but I can't read a single word on these lists. The letters are all jumbled up on top of each other. It looks like something Nanako might have written in kindergarten."

Minako's heart sank. She knew that her handwriting had been particularly terrible ever since she'd lost the use of her eyes, but…she'd hoped it would be better than that. It was very difficult to figure out the proper placement of words and letters when she couldn't even see what she was trying to do. Was it really that illegible? Maybe she should have asked Junpei to look it over before she brought it in…

"And I don't get what you're telling me about marital trouble. I don't know what's got into you, but if you bothered a bunch of people and asked them a lot of questions for no reason, there's no way I can back you up. This wasn't official police business, and I can't accept responsibility for it. Listen, Arisato, I know that you're bored, and I appreciate that. It's probably really hard, trying to find a niche in a place like this. Even so, you can't go running around playing detective while there's a serious investigation going on. You're going to get in trouble, or you're going to get hurt, and either one of those things leaves me with a ton of paperwork. Just…just stick to what you're good at, okay? Please. For my sake. I don't need any more headaches than I already have."

With that said, Dojima stood up, and stalked over to someone else's desk, where he began an urgent conversation that Minako couldn't quite make out. Totally deflated, she sat where she was and tried to remember that Dojima hadn't meant to be cruel. After all, he was right. She wasn't a detective, she had no experience, and her contributions probably weren't particularly useful to the case. Still, after everything Tohru had said, she'd thought hard about crimes of passion and the things that motivated them, and had spent a very long and meticulous time compiling a list of potential suspects that she thought might fit the profile of a killer she was beginning to concoct in her head. Maybe it really had been too much to hope that Dojima would find some use for it.

A little, malicious part of Minako wanted to tell Dojima all about where she'd gotten the ideas for her research. How would he feel, she wondered, if he knew that his former partner was still alive, but that he was somewhere out of his reach? How helpless and useless would that make him feel? It was, for just a few moments, a very satisfying reflection, until Minako shook herself and insisted to the treacherous inner recesses of her mind that this was no way to think about a man who had really taken her on and given her a job out of the goodness of his heart, despite the fact that he didn't need someone like her, who had few marketable skills.

Strangely enough, Tohru had taken her seriously. Sure, he'd laughed at her, and made fun of how little information she'd had, but in the end he'd listened, and answered her questions. Well, most of her questions, anyway. He hadn't been too eager to talk about that girl he'd once loved. That is, of course, if he had loved her. When she'd asked him, he'd said that love was stupid, but wasn't it only people who'd been hurt by love that said things like that?

She was thinking deeply about that when the phone rang, and so she only managed to grab it on the fifth ring. "Hello, Inaba Police Department," she informed the caller. "Do you have an emergency?"

"Hey, Mina-tan!" Junpei's voice was on the other end. "Guess what? You're gonna love this."

Minako frowned. "Junpei, you're not supposed to call me at work," she reminded him. "This is the line we use for important calls."

"Well," insisted Junpei, "you keep refusing to get a cell phone, so I have to break rules. Join the 21rst century with the rest of us, and then maybe I won't have to call you at work. Anyway, listen to this; Daidara-san says I can take the week off starting on the 22nd!"

Minako took a moment to realize what he was talking about. In the midst of everything that had happened recently, she had honestly completely forgotten about their vacation plans. "Oh, that's wonderful!" she told him, finally. "No, that's really great! But, Junpei…the 22nd is in four days. That's not enough time for us to-!"

"Man, I know," said Junpei. "You'd better start packing, right? Girls take a long time to pack…but remember, we're going to stay in a Kirijo hotel, so it's not like it won't already have all the stuff we need. Aw, this is so exciting…a real vacation! Do you know how long it's been? I can't even remember the last time…"

He went on for a while longer before Minako finally managed to hang up the phone, assuring him that she'd get everything done as fast as she could so as to be ready to leave with him on the the morning of the 22nd. It felt strange, taking time off in the middle of a big murder case, but Dojima had made it very clear to Minako that her help wasn't exactly invaluable. Right now, a little bit of relaxation and some time with old friends might be exactly what she needed. She and Junpei hadn't really gotten to catch up with each other in a while either.

Before she left, however, she'd have to at least go thank Tohru, if onlyt o keep her promise that she'd be back later that day.

Making a mental note to go by the Velvet Room later that day, she squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and prepared to tackle a disappointing day's work.


	8. Seven - December 18

**Author's Note: **Several of you have written to me expressing some confusion about Minako's blindness. In order to hopefully clear that up, I have written a very personal piece called **Use Your Imagination**, which you can find on my profile page if you so desire. That will hopefully help answer your questions and help things make a little more sense. Please, do read it, and you have questions about it, I would love to have a chance to answer them! Thanks to everyone who made me realize that I needed to make that clearer and especially to **Meia42** for helping talk through the finer points of that with me. I've said it before and I mean it more each time, it's such a treat for me when you guys read and comment on my stories. I feel like I'm really learning something from all of this and that's thanks to all the help you're giving me! Please, continue to ask questions and express opinions!

Okay, so, WARNING: This chapter contains sex. No, actually, it does, and it's a slightly uncomfortable scene. It's at the end, so you can just skip over the last couple of paragraphs if you'd rather avoid it.

This is also the last chapter before things start going downhill fast. Shit will start hitting the fan at an alarming rate very soon! We will finally get our belovedly crazy, twisted, bitterly violent Adachi back!

…Hooray?

**Seven – December 18**

Minako had fully intended to let it go. She spent the whole day trying so hard not to think about Dojima's totally reasonable and legitimate rejection that she ended up being unable to think about anything else.

By the time she was ready to leave work, therefore, she was fighting off an overwhelming wave of self-righteous indignation. What did it matter, she asked herself, if she wasn't a member of the police force? Weren't there such things as civilian investigators? What about Yu, Yosuke, and all of their friends? What about Naoto Shirogane? Okay, well, maybe she didn't quite count, but…hadn't they all been a huge help in solving the case twoyears before? Why wasn't she allowed to make efforts at solving this new batch of murders?

In the back of her mind, of course, Minako knew that Dojima had been right. The rational part of her had to agree that she was probably sticking her neck out into places where it wasn't welcome, and she was unwelcome for very good reason, too. Still, the rational part of her was buried under a heap of frustrated pique when she picked up the station phone to call Nanako, and to ask her to meet up outside the Velvet Room.

"You're going to see Adachi-san, right?" asked Nanako, as soon as she saw Minako walking up the street through the shopping district.

Minako was so fire d up, she almost didn't remember to be ashamed of herself. "Yes," she said. "I'd like to, if that's all right."

Nanako giggled. "I tooold you," she said, in a sing-song little voice. Minako did her best not to react. There was absolutely no sense, she decided, in letting herself get baited by an eight year old. After all, she was supposed to be the mature one here.

Minako heard Nanako's footsteps disappear, presumably into the TV world. For some reason, Minako was extra impatient today. It seemed to take so many seconds longer than usual before she heard the footsteps reappear, this time accompanied by the sound of Tohru's lazy stride against the pavement.

"I got him!" announced Nanako triumphantly.

"So?" asked Tohru. "How'd it go?"

Minako bit her lip in frustration. "Badly," she said. "He wasn't interested in hearing what I had to say."

She had expected, or maybe just hoped that Tohru would be sympathetic, but when he answered her, he sounded almost bored. "Yeah," he said, "well, I could have told you that would happen. Dojima-san's usually pretty sure that he's right about everything. He probably wasn't gonna bother hearing you out when he already has a plan of action."

"Why didn't you tell me that before?" demanded Minako.

"Because," Tohru said, nonchalant as ever, "I figure maybe you and he have some things in common. Were you really gonna listen to me if I tried to tell you not to do it? No, you were gonna go off all heroic and do it anyway, so what was the point?"

Unfortunately, thought Minako, Tohru was probably right. Her shoulders sagged as she accepted that maybe she hadn't handled this very well.

"Um…" Nanako spoke up, sounding slightly uncomfortable. "Wait, are you guys talking about my dad?"

An awkward moment stretched in between them, as Minako realized that she and Tohru were criticizing Nanako's father right in front of her, after Nanako had just done them a favor.

"Nanako-chan," began Minako.

Tohru cut her off before she had a chance to find a way to end that sentence. "Yeah, we are," he said. "I bet you know more about it than anyone, right, Nanako-chan? Does Dojima-san give you a hard time a lot? You know, telling you what to do, and where to go, and how to behave?"

"Well, yeah," said Nanako, apparently puzzled. "He is my dad, so, that's kind of his job."

"Nah," retorted Tohru. "My dad never did any of that stuff. He figured I probably knew better for myself, and let me get away with whatever I wanted, as long as I didn't get bad grades and 'bring shame down on the family.'"

Nanako apparently had to think about that for a moment. After a considerate silence, she murmured, "Hmm…that's probably why you had to go to jail."

Minako heard Tohru's exclamation of surprise, and she couldn't help it. The innocent, unassuming way that Nanako had delivered the final blow was too much, and Minako burst out laughing. She laughed so hard she could barely breathe for a moment.

"Shut up," muttered Tohru, under his breath. "It's not that funny."

"No," insisted Minako, "no, it is really, really funny…"

It was a few seconds before she managed to get herself under control again, apparently having needed a good laugh after the long and frustrating day that she'd had at the station. When she had finally quieted down enough o hear anyone else over the sound of her own peals of laughter, Tohru was ready with his counter attack.

"You didn't have any parents either, right?" he asked her. "So, it's not like you've got quality family guidance to thank for where you are today."

That sobered Minako up quickly enough. "You're right," she replied. "My parents never did much to teach me how to behave. I suppose I had better luck than you did, at least, when it came to teaching myself."

Tohru didn't respond to that, and Minako had the satisfaction of realizing that she'd gotten one up on him.

"Um, hey," began Nanako. "Are you fighting? Couples shouldn't fight."

Tohru and Minako answered her at basically the same time.

"Nah, we're not fighting," Tohru assured her. "We're just messing around."

"We are not a couple!" insisted Minako.

"If you say so…" murmured Nanako, still uncertain. Minako wasn't sure which of the two of them Nanako was actually answering.

Later, after Nanako had waved her goodbyes and started off for home, Minako sat down on the pavement with a thoughtful little sigh. "I don't know though, "she murmured, more to herself than to Tohru. "It might have been nice to have parents who were proud of me. Do you ever talk to yours?"

"You're kidding, right?" asked Tohru. "My dad's been dead since I was a kid, and my mom…you think she'd ever want to hear from me again, now that she's seen my name all over the news for two years running?" He laughed bitterly. "I guess I was telling the truth, though, when I used to say that I'd be famous someday. Anyway, everybody thinks I'm dead. Makes it a lot easier. At least nobody's expecting me to send postcards anymore."

That, thought Minako, was probably true. After all, having a well-known serial killer for a son was definitely significantly more dishonorable than any number of Cs or Ds that could possibly come back on a report card. "I wonder what it's like for people like Yu and Yosuke," she mused. "They've got parents, and families…probably families who love and care about them, but they'll never be able to tell those families about all the stuff that goes on in their lives. Everything that's happened to us, everything that we've been through…it's not like we can tell anybody about it. At least I don't have anyone to hide things from. Maybe I should look at it that way."

"Yeah," agreed Tohru. "It's better not to have anybody to answer to."

Something about what Tohru said made Minako pause for thought, while unexpectedly appealing ideas played hesitantly through her brain. "Nobody to answer to.." she murmured. "That's probably it. That's what I'm doing wrong. I can still use the work that I've done on this murder case…I just can't hold myself answerable to Dojima-san. A real civilian investigator doesn't waste time with the police. She just takes matters into her own hands."

"How," wondered Tohru, "did you get that from what I said?"

Minako was about to tell him, when she heard the familiar grumbling rumble that only an empty stomach could make. "Hungry again?" she asked him.

"Starving," muttered Tohru, sounding slightly embarrassed. "Came out of nowhere, too, all of a sudden…"

Wondering what time it was, Minako wondered if she could get away with stopping for a bite to eat. She had told Junpei that she'd start packing right away, and for all that she wanted to reject his statement that women took a long time to get ready for a trip, she knew that she still had several loads of laundry to do before she could even think about loading up a suitcase.

Still, Iwatodai was four whole days away, and the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she, too, was starting to get hungry…

"Come on," she told him. "If we hurry, we can probably beat the dinner rush. If we get in and get out fast, nobody will see us."

"Yeah, fine," mumbled Tohru. "One of these days, I really have to ask that Igor guy if the Velvet Room takes deliveries…"

**Later that evening, after dinner…**

For one reason or another, it wasn't until several hours later that Adachi and Minako wandered back towards the Velvet Room through the now darkened streets of the Inaba shopping district.

"It's a good idea, though," Minako was insisting, for probably the seventh or eighth time. "I don't need Dojima-san's help, or anyone else's. If Yu and Yosuke can catch a crazy killer, then why can't I do it?"

"Didn't anyone ever tell you?" asked Adachi sarcastically, "that it's not nice to talk about a guy when he's standing right in front of you?"

Minako shook her head distractedly. "Not you," she said. "I mean, okay, they caught you, but I'm talking about this new murderer, the one who strangles women! What if one of my friends is next? What if I'm next?" Suddenly, she stopped walking, and her mouth fell open as she did, apparently, some rapid calculations in her head. "That's it," she said finally. "That's how I'll do it. I'm a seventeen year old girl. I'm the perfect bait to catch this guy."

"That's insane," muttered Adachi. "Look, this may have been a fun little game when you started out, but now you're talking like a crazy person. You're gonna get yourself killed, and then I'll have done all that crap in the Velvet Room and busted my ass for nothing."

He turned around to wait for Minako to catch up to him, and saw her smiling at him in the dark. "Nanako was the one who trapped you in the Velvet Room," she reminded him. "Not me."

"Okay," agreed Adachi, "but I would never been in there playing hero if it hadn't been for you."

They had reached the door to the Velvet Room by then, and Adachi lingered reluctantly outside of it, none too eager, as usual, to go back to the nauseating prison where he never needed to eat or sleep, but ended up just watching and waiting as the days crawled by.

"Um," said Minako suddenly.

Adachi raised an eyebrow at her. "What?" he asked.

"Well…" she murmured hesitantly. "I'm going home, but…I wouldn't mind if you'd come with me."

Adachi's breath froze abruptly in his lungs. Wait, what had she just said?

"There's a murderer out here, after all," she added, instantly dashing his suddenly revived hopes. "I'm not sure I want to be walking around alone…"

"I thought you just said you wanted to try to catch the guy?" insisted Adachi. "You were gonna use yourself as bait, remember?"

"Yeah," muttered Minako, "but, first I have to have a plan. Right now I don't have a plan. I mean, you know, sometime in the future, I could try that." She paused awkwardly for a moment, apparently embarrassed about her show of weakness, before adding quickly, "and I can't leave you out here by yourself, anyway. That's against the rules. There's a TV at my place you can use to get back in."

"So, let me get this straight," said Adachi. "You're afraid of getting attacked by a murderer, and so you're asking a murderer to walk you home."

"Sounds about right, yes," she agreed. "After all, who better than you to watch my back? You probably know just the kind of places that someone like you would strike from."

"Someone like me," growled Adachi, but Minako's little laugh told him that she'd been trying to get a rise out of him. Unwilling to let her bait him, he gave her an insincere, exasperated sigh. "Fine, whatever you want," he said. "Come on, hurry up."

Minako led him back, very carefully, through the now darkened streets of the shopping district.

"You know that phrase?" she asked, as they turned a corner and started into a neighborhood that Adachi didn't recognize, "This is kind of like that saying...how does it go? 'The blind leading the dead?'"

"I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be the 'the blind leading the blind,'" Adachi corrected her.

Minako shrugged. "Well, yeah, but I'm blind, and you, as far as everyone else knows, are dead, so it makes more sense that way."

They stopped in front of what Adachi could only assume was the door to Minako's house, and he found himself wondering absently how a seventeen year old office assistant like Minako could manage to have her own place like this. It was nicer than the house he and Hinata had lived in together when they'd been back in the city, and he was sure he'd been making more money back then than Minako was doing now.

"Well?" asked Minako, having already pushed open the front door. "Are you coming in?"

Adachi stared at her. There she went again, asking questions that he was just dying to misinterpret. "Uh…" was all he managed to say. His mind felt all confused. There was something very surreal about what was going on right now. His hands were heavy, and he couldn't seem to figure out what to do with them. How was she so good at turning him into some kind of inarticulate dumbass?

Suddenly, the face of Saki Konishi swam up in front of Adachi's eyes, and he could imagine very clearly the disgusted and horrified way she'd looked at him when he'd come on to her that day after the murder of Mayumi Yamano. It made him feel sick to his stomach.

"I'm out of here," he told Minako.

"The TV's in the living room," she said, disappearing through the door.

Following her inside, Adachi was almost disappointed to find that, yes, there was, in fact, a TV set next to the sofa. As he stood in front of it, preparing to go back to the Velvet Room, he turned and saw her still waiting behind him.

"So?" she said.

"So what?" he asked stupidly. He felt slow and detached. Thinking clearly was not getting any easier as the moments went by.

"You know what I'm asking," she told him, and even through her best attempt at confident bravado, Adachi could hear the waver in her voice.

"Is…that an invitation?" he asked.

"What do you think?" she retorted.

Shaking his head, Adachi took a step towards her, laughing a little under his breath. "No," he said, "we're not playing that game again."

Minako laughed too. "Why? Because you lost last time?"

"I'm…pretty sure I won," muttered Adachi. "Yeah, I definitely…."

She drew closer to him, and he went in to kiss her eagerly, but very carefully, unsure of exactly what he was afraid would happen. Maybe the floor would open up, and he'd fall through back into the Velvet Room, only to find Igor waiting for him there, staring him down with disapproval in his eyes, aghast at his inappropriate conduct against a former guest of the Velvet Room.

In the back of Adachi's mind, Igor's gaze suddenly twisted and warped, turning abruptly into the accusatory eyes of Mayumi Yamano, holding the same angry, disdainful expression she'd given him right before she'd fallen backwards forever into the TV.

"Stop it," he muttered. "Quit staring at me like that." He couldn't stand the feeling of his skin crawling as the demonically haunting faces of those women accused him from the recesses of something ugly underneath the surface of his brain.

"I can't even start staring at you," Minako reminded him. "Blind girl, remember?" I couldn't see you if I wanted to."

She leaned in and gave him a little kiss on the cheek, just below his right eye, and then another below the left. The innocence of the gesture caught him totally off guard. With one last shudder and gasp, Adachi's strained self restraint gave up on him. He wound his arms around her body and crushed her mouth to his, kissing her deeply, breathing her in and letting relief wash over him with every extra second that she didn't shove him away. She stood still and unresisting for a few moments, and then her fingers traced up along his collarbone and began to loosen his tie.

His heart started racing uncomfortably as he realized that he now had a problem. In order to start work on the shirt buttons, which he desperately wanted to do, he would have to release his grip, in which case she might pull away from him. Hesitantly, he relaxed one hand and removed it from Minako's waist, only for her to reach up and wrap her hands around the back of his neck while she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him.

Adachi's fingers had probably never moved as fast in his life as they did getting that shirt undone and off of his shoulders. It hit the ground only moments before he pulled Minako back on to the sofa, which he only remembered was there when he stumbled into it after tripping over the sleeve of his abandoned shirt. Pulling her blouse off over her head, he lingered for a delicious moment over the stunning feeling of their bare skin meeting for the first time.

There wasn't any point in trying to make it upstairs. Adachi knew it wasn't going to happen. They spent the next few slow-motion moments tangled up in each other on the sofa, and Adachi lost track of time in the midst of being with her. It was the first time for him in years. He wasn't sure he could have stopped even if she'd asked him to, and was relieved as hell that she didn't.

When it was all over, she rested her head on his pounding chest, and then closed her eyes and relaxed against him. Adachi stared uncomprehendingly down at the naive, unquestioning look on her face, and felt something twist hard at the place where his heart was probably supposed to be.

Shit. He thought. Shit, shit, shit.

"Okay," he muttered to himself, so low that he didn't think she could hear him. "You win, blind girl. You win. I surrender."


	9. Eight - December 19

**Author's Note: **The original plan for this chapter was much longer, but I think I'm going to break it into two chapters instead. The next one is pretty darn dark, so it'll be better standing on its own than attached directly to this one, anyway.

In this chapter, Adachi starts going mildly crazy. In the next chapter, he goes much more crazy! Those of you who have been begging me for crazier, less rational Adachi, rejoice! But don't get used to it. As always, I will continue to jerk my characters around mercilessly.

Also, we're going to be seeing some of the P3 cast again soon, when Minako goes to Iwatodai! Perhaps most notably, she'll be checking in with Shinjiro, as well as, of course, with Yukari and Fuuka. We'll get some good Junpei and Minako moments, too.

There will definitely be an update to this story tomorrow night. After that, I will probably take some time off on the weekend to work on my grad school finals. I know a lot of you are dealing with finals of various kinds right now...good luck! I'm cheering for you!

**Eight – December 19**

Minako woke up still scrunched up on the sofa. One of her arms had fallen sleep, and as she tried absently to massage some life back into it, she took stock of what was going on.

Tohru, she could tell, was obviously gone. There was no sign or sound of him anywhere, as far as she could sense. She was, she realized, not surprised, even if she was just a little bit disappointed. He had probably rushed off to meet his Velvet Room curfew, and, besides, it wasn't as though the two of them were really…

That was an interesting question. Minako sat up, and took a deep breath. What exactly were she and Tohru, now? It had been Minako, after all, who had told Nanako just last night that they were definitely not a couple. He was definitely not her "boyfriend." The word "boyfriend" was not one that she could ever imagine applying to Tohru. It just did not seem to fit him. Shinjiro, who had been devoted, awkwardly sweet, and even almost romantic at times, had been a boyfriend. Tohru was…a much older man with a criminal record that Minako had just spent the night with.

"Oh boy," she muttered aloud. "What am I turning myself into?" Maybe Junpei hadn't been wrong, she realized, when he'd remarked to Rise and Yosuke about how loose Minako seemed to be with the men in her life. Sure, he hadn't meant it that way, but it had stuck with her. If her own best friend thought of her that way, there must be some truth behind it. After last night, she couldn't argue the point. That had been a pretty unscrupulous thing to do. She knew she should feel dirty, and ashamed of herself, but she didn't.

After all, it had been wonderful. She wished she could have seen the look on his face when he reached out to hold her after she'd called him away from the TV. When he'd asked her not to look at him, he'd sounded so…so vulnerable. She'd wanted to hold him, to tell him that she wanted him, just so that she could erase that miserable note from his voice.

Maybe that was why she'd done it. She'd never, she was sure, intended to sleep with him when she'd asked him to walk her home. If she'd thought harder about it, she knew that she probably would have realized what it must have sounded like to him but…Minako had never been particularly good at that sort of thing. It hadn't been difficult to figure out how nervous he was when they'd finally gotten in, though. It was coming off of him like some kind of terrified aura. Minako had been surprised, almost touched by it. She hadn't thought of him as the type. After all, he was always so devil-may-care when he talked with her about serious things. She'd liked seeing the soft spot. It was endearing. That was, she felt, a very strange feeling to have about a man like Tohru, who was unpredictable, dangerous, and definitely a very bad life choice.

Abruptly, Minako realized that she had not heard her alarm go off. Was it still early in the morning, she wondered, or had she, by some horrible twist of bad luck, managed to sleep through her alarm? What time was it? How late was she to work?

All thoughts of Tohru temporarily abandoned, Minako scrambled, in a half-hopeful panic, for the shower.

**Later that day, in the Velvet Room…**

Adachi was rapidly running out of places to pace. He had been stalking wildly and dementedly around Magatsu Inaba for hours, trying to let off some steam, just begging for something to take his mind off of the amazing, exhausting turmoil it had become. Unfortunately, he didn't encounter a single shadow or obstacle of any kind. Apparently, even the shadows were aware that now was not a good time to mess with him.

Everything was disgustingly, horrible, beautifully, incredibly wrong. He could still feel her touch tantalizing him, driving him to distraction, and it somehow made him want to vomit and burst out laughing helplessly at the same time. He had it so bad it was physically painful. He didn't remember ever having had it this bad before. It was like an addiction, like a disease. It was crawling all over him. He wanted more of it, much more. The walls of his ornately upholstered psychological prison were closer and more suffocating than ever before. He couldn't be here. He had to be with her.

And that, realized a rational little corner of the back of his brain, will probably never happen again. He had probably blown everything. It might be over for good.

It had been so long since Adachi had really felt anything, anything except anger, bitterness, and disappointment that he'd fallen headlong into her all at once, and grabbed everything that she'd been willing to give him without bothering or caring enough to think about what might happen next. He was a smart guy, he knew that. He was supposed to be able to plan ahead, to figure out his opponent's weakness so that he could use it against her if he needed it.

This time, though, it was his weakness he'd stumbled into, not hers. She was a major Achilles' heel for him, and just thinking about the look on her face while she'd lain against him on the couch was enough to make his heart start beating way too fast for his health.

The worst part was, _she was seventeen. _Seventeen year old girls wanted men to sweep them off their feet, to be the dazzling, attractive hero from the romance novels their parents probably tried not to let them read. Seventeen year old girls had fantasies, and their fantasies rarely ever consisted of scary, ravenous, panting men with creepy visions of dead women in their heads, and an inability to control their own primitive urges.

Seventeen year olds girls wanted to be romanced by the person that he had been so many years ago, before Hinata, before Inaba. There wasn't any of that left in him now, except for a desperate, lingering wish that maybe he could pull together enough of it just to make her smile at him.

With very little left to do, and still so much nervous energy that he couldn't imagine sitting still, Adachi made his way back to the Velvet Room, where he found Igor still sitting there, still and composed as an ugly statue. Igor looked up when Adachi walked in, and gave him the disappointed, disapproving look that he'd come to expect from the man who he would absolutely never be forced to call "Master." Adachi was, after all his own master…or at least, he had been, until last night. Now he felt a great deal more like a pawn, and it wasn't necessarily a feeling he disliked. She could use him as much as she wanted, as long as she wanted to. He wanted her to want to.

Trapped again in his looping speculations about that girl, Adachi didn't even notice when Nanako walked in.

"Um…Adachi-san?" she asked."Uh oh, what happened? Did you and Minako have a fight, even after I told you not to?"

Adachi looked up at her, and opened his mouth to give her a clever rebuttal. Nothing came out. "Is she here?" he managed instead.

"Mmhmm…" Nanako looked really worried. "Maybe we should tell her that you can't come out today though. You should rest. You look sick. Your face is all pale."

Shaking his head, Adachi reached up to smooth back his hair, relieved, for the moment, that Minako couldn't see him. Nanako was probably right, and she was a very forgiving girl. If she said he looked terrible, it was probably pretty bad.

They walked out of the Velvet Room into the shopping district, and there she was, standing against the wall, holding her work bag and looking totally normal, as though nothing had happened to make her lose any sleep. For some reason, that bothered him. Why was she so cool in the face of this, while it was driving him crazy? That wasn't the way things were supposed to be. He was supposed to be the relaxed one. He was supposed to be in control.

"Minako," he said.

She turned towards his voice and smiled. "I think that's only the third time you've ever used my name," she said. "Glad to see me?"

"Wha-?" Adachi stammered. No way. She was teasing him. What the hell? There she was, totally calm, totally relaxed, making fun of him for wanting her. It infuriated him, and he loved it.

"What if I am?" he heard himself ask, and was relieved that he somehow sounded like himself, even if he wasn't feeling like it. "Why? Would you like that?"

Minako laughed. "I don't know," she admitted. "I'm actually not supposed to be here; I have some errands to do tonight. I just…figured I'd stop by. You know, on the way."

"Errands, huh?" asked Adachi. "What kind of errands?"

"Mostly shopping," said Minako. "I'm going on vacation next week, so I have to stop by a few different stores. It will probably take a while."

Shopping, thought Adachi, was expensive. Money was something there was no shortage of in the Velvet Room, especially after all the shadows he'd knocked out from sheer boredom. Men with money were attractive as hell, and every guy who'd once been broke like him knew it. Maybe this was his chance to save a little bit of face. "Let me help you with that," he said. "I've got some spare change. Where are we going?"

Minako just shook her head. "I," she told him, putting careful emphasis on the pronoun, "am going to Okina City to a high-end women's clothing store. You would have a hard time fitting in, there. I can't think of any disguise that wouldn't stand out."

"Let me pick something out for you, and it's worth the risk," insisted Adachi, grinning. "Besides, it's not like you can do it for yourself, right?"

"Thank you," said Minako firmly, "but I don't need your money, and I don't need your help."

"Oh, I can help!" piped up Nanako. Adachi blinked. He'd forgotten she was even there.

Minako just smiled. "It's okay, Nanako-chan," she insisted. "Honestly, I'll be fine. Go back home and check up on Yu for me, okay? Otherwise your dad might get worried again like he did yesterday."

Dutifully, although a bit reluctantly, Nanako headed for home, leaving Adachi and Minako alone.

"Then," asked Adachi quietly, "what do you need? Come on, give a guy a hint."

Minako started to look a little uncomfortable. "Are you trying to bribe me?" she asked. "Because that's…distinctly creepy."

"It's not bribery," insisted Adachi. "Come on, there's always something girls want. If it's not money, then what? Status? Fame? Hell, I live in a world that broadcasts itself on the TV. If you want to be a star, we can do that. I can get to pretty much anywhere in the world from in there, too. Tell me where you want to go. Anywhere. I'm serious. What do you want me to do?"

What had started off as a suave demonstration of what a neat guy Adachi was had begun turning rapidly into a desperate plea for her attention. He tried to cover by leaning nonchalantly against the nearby wall.

Minako bit her lip. "You have some of the strangest ideas about women," she told him. "I don't want anything from you. We're not even…"

For some reason, she didn't finish that sentence, and Adachi was weirdly glad.

"Will you walk me to the train station?" she asked instead, apparently giving up on the previous conversation. "We can go around the back so people aren't as likely to see us."


	10. Nine - December 19

**Author's Note: ** The Ides of March, huh? Okay, then let's have a murder!** AeroShylph**, this one's for you. Well, the ending is, anyway. The first part will probably just annoy you. Sorry about that.

As I said in the **Piecekeeping** update, there is a significant and pointed overlap in between that update, and this one. Something that happens in this chapter couldn't have happened without something that happened in the other one. It's easy to overlook, and if you blink, you'll miss it, but I'm curious to see who catches it…actually, if you can figure it out, I will write you a one-shot of your choice, featuring any character or pairing you want. How about that? See? It's been a while since we've played a game, this will be fun.

WARNING: Blood. Sappy romance. Violence. Death. Disturbing images. Confusing juxtapositions.

Also, I do not condone unhealthy, obsessive relationships. Let's all have fun reading my story, and then…don't date Adachi. Go out there and make good choices, okay?

**Nine – December 19**

Minako and Tohru walked side by side in silence for a while, weaving their way through back alleys as they headed for the train station.

What, she wondered, had all that been about? For a moment, there, she'd been starting to get angry. It had sounded as though Tohru thought she was some kind of…some kind of prostitute, or…

But, no, she told herself, that wasn't it. He hadn't meant anything like that. That was just her guilt rearing its ugly head again. No, this didn't have anything to do with her. He'd made it clear, before, that he had a problem with women. There was something about them he just didn't understand. That, of course, probably came from whatever problem he'd had with that girl he refused to tell her about, when she'd pressed him the other night at Shiroku. There was a lot of stuff inside him, she was beginning to realize, that she was a long way from understanding. His little outburst of apparently random bribery had probably, in his own slightly alarming way, been a sign that he cared about her.

And there, of course, was another interesting dilemma. Did he care about her? Was Tohru even the sort of person who cared about people? Did she want him to? He was usually so flippant with her, calling her that offensive nickname, and teasing her at every turn.

Then again, as she'd told Nanako not too long ago, boys usually made fun of the girls they liked the best. For some reason, Minako felt as though she was back in elementary school. It had been a lot like this. Awkward boys, uncomfortable conversations, learning how to feel about people for the first time…

Wait, wasn't Tohru almost thirty? How funny, thought Minako, that this usually confident, self-possessed older man was the one that was acting like a twelve year old. It made her want to laugh, and before she could catch herself, she did.

"What's so funny?" asked Tohru.

"Nothing, nothing," said Minako quickly, shaking her head. "Sorry, I was just thinking about something else." She decided to suit the word to the action and actually try to think about something else. There was no way she was going to get her head around this right now, anyway. It would have been better, she reflected, if there was somebody, anybody she could talk to about it…but the very idea of mentioning her, uh, relations with Tohru to any of her friends left her completely cold. The look she pictured on Yosuke's face was far from pretty. The laughter died immediately on her lips, and she swallowed hard.

"So, um," began Tohru. "Vacation, right? Vacations are fun. Where are you going?" He was working pretty hard to sound like his usual unconcerned self, Minako realized. There was still that hint of nervousness in his voice e that made her have to hide a smile.

On a whim, she found his hand, and slipped hers into it. He let out a little exclamation of surprise, but closed his hand convulsively around hers and held it there.

"I thought you said hand-holding wasn't your thing," she teased him.

"Yeah, well, I'll deal," he muttered. "Anyway, we'll be there in a minute."

Minako couldn't hear the sound of the train, and assumed that she was a few minutes early. There would be people, she knew, waiting on the platform, and they couldn't risk being seen. She tried pulling her hand out of Tohru's, but he, apparently, wasn't letting go.

"Tohru," she said.

"Huh? Oh, yeah." He dropped her hand suddenly, as though he'd just realized it was something disgusting that he didn't want any part of.

"Thanks for coming along," she told him. "Honestly, I feel safer not having to walk around alone these days."

"You feel safer with me," he said. "That's…something different. I don't get you. You're an idiot. It pisses me off. How can you be so naïve?"

Giving the lie to his words, he suddenly leaned in and kissed her. Maybe it was because it was dark, or maybe because he was so on edge, but he just missed her lips and ended up at the very corner of her mouth. Minako was charmed. She turned her head slightly to meet his lips, and felt his whole body relax into the kiss as he folded her into him.

"What the hell are you trying to do to me?" he muttered into her hair.

Minako wasn't sure how to respond to that. "I can stop," she told him.

"Mmmph," mumbled Tohru, pulling her in for another kiss. "No," he said, with a little laugh. "Definitely don't do that."

Finally, he released her, and Minako, still a little breathless, opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it again. Eventually, she said "I'm gonna go get on the train."

"Yeah," agreed Tohru. "Try not to have too much fun without me."

Aware that it was now time to walk away, Minako turned back in the direction of the train station, and tried to stop the world from spinning. She was beginning to get the impression that she might be in over her head, this time. This had started out as one date, just to feed Minako's curiosity as to what could have been. Now, it was turning into something that was frankly a little bit frightening. There was so much intensity in his voice and in the way he held her that it made her a bit light headed. What had she been trying to do to him? Nothing. She wasn't trying to do anything to anyone. This was just…this was just getting out of control.

And of course, thought Minako, she could stop any time she wanted to. The trouble was, she didn't really want to.

The closer she got to the platform, the more Minako was aware that everything around her was eerily quiet. Maybe, she thought, she was actually later than she'd expected to be. If she'd missed the last train, she'd be in trouble. After all, trying to get all of her shopping done tomorrow night wouldn't be a good idea, especially since she'd reserved that evening for packing, unless Dojima told her he had something else for her to do. She shouldn't, she knew, have wasted so much time back at the Velvet Room with Tohru and Nanako.

The silence was beginning to make her uncomfortable, and Minako began wondering just how far away Tohru had gone. Was he still there watching her? That, she admitted, would be creepy, but strangely comforting right now. If she really had missed the train, maybe she should start going back. There was no telling how long she'd be stuck out here waiting if the train wasn't actually going to come. She should have asked Tohru what time it was before she'd left him.

Suddenly, footsteps came walking up behind her, and Minako let out a little sigh of relief.

"Tohru?" she asked. "You know, this could almost be called stalking…remember when I told you that normal people don't-!"

She never finished the sentence. Before she got the next word out, there were rough, forceful hands around her mouth, thick-fingered hands that definitely did not belong to Tohru. She felt her head being forced backwards, and as she thrashed and kicked to try to free herself, something cool and soft slid around her neck, and then tightened with a spasmodic jerk, forcing the air out of her lungs in mid-yell.

Minako did her best not to panic. It wasn't easy. She could feel her lungs screaming for air as she stamped down hard on the foot of her attacker, and tried to ram him in the chest with her elbow at the same time. Weakened and distracted by the lack of air, her blows weren't enough, and although she did hear a grunt of anger, all that seemed to do was to make the noose tighter around her neck.

As the world began to quiet and still, she wondered perversely what Junpei would do when he found out that she wasn't going to be able to go to Iwatodai with him. Would he bring Rise? What would he tell the rest of SEES? How would Nanako and Yosuke get on in the Velvet Room?

Bang. A shot rang out, and Minako heard her attacker grunt in pain before she felt herself falling forward. Too shocked to catch herself in time, she hit the ground with a painful crack, and lay there stunned for a moment before she was even able to scramble to her feet.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Three more shots came in rapid succession. Someone was running towards her, feet pounding against the ground. No, she realized, they weren't pounding anymore. They were making a sort of slippery noise, as though striding through a puddle. Bang. The gun went off again. Bang. Bang. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, click.

Something hit the ground, hard, with a sickening sort of wet thud. Minako was too terrified to move. Then, the laughter started. It was shaky, nervous laughter, getting louder and more hysterical as the moments went by. Minako didn't want to recognize that voice, but she knew that she did. It wasn't his normal tone, but it was definitely, undeniably him.

"Tohru?" she whispered.

The world chose that horrible moment to flash back into visual splendor. Minako gasped as she suddenly saw, just as she had twice before, the amazingly bright and incomprehensible colors and lights of the real world all around her. Of all the times that she could possibly have chosen to be granted a second of sight, this seemed like a cruel one. Lying next to her on the ground was something that had once been a man. He was a large, stocky man, and the big, hairy hand that was splayed out just a foot from her told her very clearly that this was the person who'd been wrapping that thing around her throat and choking her.

His whole body was riddled with bullet holes, and there was blood pouring in rivers from his arms, legs, torso, and head. He was coated and bathed in his own blood. Standing behind him, still holding the smoking gun, was Tohru Adachi, his eyes glazed over, his form shaking with crazed, nervous laughter as wiped away some blood that had splattered onto his face.

The world went dark again, and the vision was gone, but Minako could still see that horrible picture imprinted starkly behind her eyes. She would never be able to forget that, as long as she lived.

"It's okay," Tohru stammered, in what sounded like someone else's impression of his voice. "I got him. He was…he was going to take you away from me."

She felt him reach for her, and instinctively she pulled away, sick her stomach at the idea of him touching her with those bloody hands. She'd seen that manic look on his face, so different from the way she'd always imagined him looking when she'd listened to his voice or let him hold her. This wasn't the man she knew. This was something else, something that had crawled up out of a combination of both of their bad dreams.

"Minako," he said.

The panic that had been threatening to overtake her ever since she'd been attacked finally got the better of her. She didn't stop to think about where she was going, or what she wanted to say.

Instead, she ran.


	11. Ten - December 20

**Author's Note: **Well…you can't say I didn't warn you about this story getting dark..

I'm gonna do the **Piecekeeping** update either tonight or tomorrow morning, I promise. First, though, I really need to get out Adachi's head for a few minutes…it is not a very good place to be.

I'm going out for ice cream. See you in a few hours.

**Ten – December 20**

The next morning, Minako got out of bed the same way she did every day, and got ready to go to work. She wasn't sure what else to do. She couldn't remember how she'd gotten home the night before, or what time it had been when she'd finally tucked herself into bed. She'd been so scared and panicked and worried and stressed that the moment her head had touched the pillow, all the emotions had just started pouring out in a torrent of latent tears, and she'd cried herself mercifully to sleep.

Today, there was nothing left to do but to go to work. It felt strange, trying to put herself back together after the events of the night before. She wasn't sure how to act as though nothing had happened. Honestly he still couldn't be certain what exactly had happened. There was a mark around her neck where that man had tried to strangle her. She could feel it when she pressed her fingers into the skin. Worried that it might be visible to other people, Minako wrapped a scarf around it. It was the middle of winter, of course, so a scarf, she hoped, wouldn't be suspicious. All she had to do was to remember not to take it off.

The entire bus ride to work, she was edgy. Whenever someone's arm brushed hers, or she heard a voice a little too close to her ear, she would jump and scoot as far as she could in the opposite direction. Her nerves were about as taught as they had ever been.

When she arrived at the station, everyone seemed to be talking at once. Possibly because of the trouble she'd had sleeping, all the voices sounded louder than they should have been. Minako weeded her way through excited people to her desk.

"Good morning," said Dojima, sounding almost as tired as Minako felt.

"Morning, sir," she mumbled. There was a long moment of silence before she forced herself to ask the obvious question. "Why is everyone so excited? Has there been a break in the case?" Even if she already knew the answer, it would look terrible, she knew, if she didn't ask.

"Yeah, something like that," said Dojima. "They found another body last night, right on the train station steps."

"Really," said Minako, biting her lip. "That's terrible." She needed to try a little harder, she thought, to make this sound convincing. Her heart just wasn't in it. She didn't want to think about the train station. Every time she did, she knew she'd see it stained with blood.

Dojima, however, didn't appear to notice her distress. "Well, yes and no," he told her. "Looks like the guy they found at the station may have been the same guy who was strangling all those poor girls. Somebody put fifteen bullets in him. Damn, you should have seen the mess…"

Minako felt the bile rising in her throat. "So," she managed, "it's finally over, then."

"Course not," replied Dojima, with a long-suffering sigh. "Now we have to find whoever did this guy in…"

For the first time, that got Minako's full attention. "What?" she asked, temporarily forgetting about the miserable images that were planted in her head. "Why?"

Dojima sounded surprised. "What do you mean, why? Cause that's our job. What did you expect?"

"I…" Minako didn't know what she'd expected. "But, sir," she began again, "didn't the person who shot the murderer do us a favor? He might have saved countless lives! Who knows who the next victim might have been?" She almost made it all the way through that sentence without her voice wavering, but not quite.

Dojima paused a moment before answering that. "Look," he said, "I know what you mean. If it had been my daughter that bastard had hurt, I'd probably do the same goddamn thing, and no law on earth would have stopped me. I am the law, though. This whole department is. It's our job to find these people and take them down. Murder's murder, we can't have people talking justice into their own hands. It's dangerous. Violent crime is still crime, even if it's in the name of vengeance. You got that? Besides, we don't know anything yet. Maybe this guy got shot by somebody else he was working with. Maybe it's a full scale operation. That happens a lot in cases like these. You'll know that after you've been on the force for a while."

"Um…" Minako felt herself nodding in acquiescence, while the danger signals began hurtling through her mind. "Yes, of course. I understand." She swallowed hard. Had there been any evidence left at the scene? Had she dropped anything? What if they found her footprints, or her fingerprints? How would she manage to explain that?

And, said the little voice in the back of her mind that she was trying so hard to ignore, what about Tohru? Just thinking about him again made her skin crawl. She never wanted to see him again, not after what she'd seen on his face and heard in his voice at the station. All of the stories that Yosuke and Chie had told her, about the monster that Tohru Adachi really was came swimming back to haunt her as she remembered the look on his face and the tone in his voice as he'd wiped that blood off of his forehead.

He had, however, saved her life. There was no doubt that without him, she'd be dead right now. She couldn't let them catch him again, not for something that he'd done in her defense…if, of course, it had been in her defense. She couldn't help but imagine the sickening possibilities of what Tohru might have done to her if she'd been the one to defy him. If she'd refused him that day, when they'd been alone together in her living room, he might have…

But, no, she told herself. That was ridiculous. He cared about her. He wanted to protect her. That was why he'd done it.

"He was going to take you away from me," she remembered Tohru saying, as he stood there over the corpse. If Minako had tried to take herself away first, then…

"Won't be too hard though," remarked Dojima, interrupting Minako's disturbing inner monologue. "Guy must have been an amateur. We found his gun at the scene."

"His…gun?" squeaked Minako.

"Yeah," replied Dojima. "Got it in my desk drawer. We'll send it over to ballistics tomorrow. Probably has fingerprints all over it."

Minako took a deep breath. There was no way, she knew, that Tohru could possibly have been so careless. After all, he had been the one that told her that he knew better than anybody how not to get caught.

Then again, she reflected, there had been so much going on…and this hadn't been a planned crime, it had been spur-of-the-moment, almost panicky. It might just be possible that he hadn't been paying close enough attention to remember the gun. She certainly hadn't. She hadn't even thought about it until this very moment.

"Oh my god," she whispered. "What am I going to do?"

There was no question that she desperately needed help. Nanako was the only one who knew about what had gone on between her and Tohru, and there was no way that Minako was willing to let an eight year old girl get involved in this.

There was, of course, only one other person who could possibly understand the situation. She didn't really have a choice. Picking up the phone, she dialed a few numbers, and waited for it to finish ringing on the other end.

"Hello, Dojima residence," said Yu's voice on the line.

"Yu?" asked Minako, trying to keep her voice as level as she could. "Hey, it's Minako. Um, I can't really talk right now, but I was hoping that you might have some time later today. I'd…like to ask you something."

"Sure," said Yu. "No problem. I'll see you after work."

**Later that day, inside the TV World…**

Magatsu Inaba was awash in a cacophony of derision and scorn. That was one of the main problems with the TV world, thought Adachi, as he stood just outside a wall constructed of yellow, criss-crossing police tape, and listened to the voices made manifest by the inner workings of his mind. He couldn't be alone here. Everything inside his head was real, alive, and speaking to him. Every thought he had, every voice he remembered came hauntingly out of the woodwork.

"No…no, leave me alone!" Saki Konishi was screaming. "Get away from me, you pervert!"

"Take your hands off me…I'll scream. I warn you, I'll scream!" echoed Mayumi Yamano.

From somewhere else, Dojima was muttering, "Damnit, Adachi…just once, couldn't you do things right the first time? Why do I always have to follow around and clean up your mess?"

"What did you expect, Tohru?" asked Hinata, with tears and anger mingling in her voice. "You're no real use!"

Adachi's own voice, as if in answer, emanated out from the walls of his prison, insisting viciously, "Nobody cares about the truth…all they care about is what they want to believe."

His gun was gone. He couldn't decide if he'd left it at the scene, or if it had disappeared, not unlike his wallet, when he'd missed curfew and found himself magically transported back to the floor of the Velvet Room. There was no reason for him not to go. He should have gone, there was plenty of time. Instead he'd just stood there in the shadows of the train station, waiting for Minako to come back to him.

She hadn't come back, of course.

She was never coming back.

Somehow, in those few insane moments while that guy was bleeding out, Minako had looked up at him, and she'd seen him. He didn't understand how. He knew it was impossible, but that didn't matter. She'd looked up at his face, and for the first time that he could ever remember, her expression had changed, she'd opened her eyes and they'd focused on his. It was over in an instant, but the moment she'd really seen him, she'd hated him. He'd watched the hate take root, and the horror in her usually soft expression when she'd suddenly discovered who he really was.

She'd seen the truth. There wasn't anything left for either of them to try to believe.

"Thanks for coming along," came Minako's voice, as Adachi's mind and the world it had created continued to taunt him from all sides. "I feel safer, not having to walk around alone."

She had felt safer with him. For a moment, he'd been the one that she had turned to for help, her protector. When he'd stepped in to really protect her, though, it hadn't been what she wanted. It was just what he'd thought all along. She wanted a knight in shining armor, a stainless hero. She wasn't interested in reality. She wasn't interested in who he'd become.

"You can still start over," said Yu Narukami's voice unexpectedly into the silence.

That was too much. Yu's words just ended up sounding like deadpan mockery, another example of the naïve, unrealistic expectations that Adachi had been too worthless to meet.

"Heh," he muttered. "Wrong again."

Suddenly, the latent rage that had been pooling lazily up inside him broke through, and he threw himself against the wall, trying to tear it with his fingers. He wanted the voices to stop, to leave him alone. Somehow, before he knew it, he'd transferred his aggression from the wall to the sides of his own skull, trying to force the voices out of his head by raking his nails from his hairline to his cheekbone, relishing and craving the pain that shot through him as the blood began to pool around his fingers. He wanted to feel something, needed to feel something real.

His persona card fell out of his pocket and then Magatsu Izanagi was standing in front of him, towering over him, radiating emptiness.

"God…I hate the shit out of you," spat Adachi, staring up at the face of his persona.

Magatsu Izanagi smiled.


	12. Eleven - December 20

**Author's Note: **I decided to stay up and finish this chapter, because I was afraid **Yuruya**'s head would explode if I didn't get it posted as soon as possible.

…No, honestly, I just really wanted to write more of it. But thank you to **Yuruya** for giving me a good excuse!

Anyway, I'm in the clear, since the next **Piecekeeping** update is December 20 as well, so it only makes sense that I finish the day over here first, before I start it over there…

I don't know why I even pretend that I'm going to sleep at night. Last night I updated at 2:00 AM. Really. I get up for work at 5:00 AM. Its' like I'm losing a game of insomniac chicken with myself…

**Eleven – December 20**

As soon as she could, Minako met Yu at the Dojima residence.

"Is Nanako here?" she asked quickly, as Yu closed the door behind her, and took her coat. "Dojima-san's staying late at the station today, I know…"

"Nanako went to a friend's house," explained Yu. "What's going on?"

By way of an answer, Minako unwound the scarf from her neck, and draped it over her shoulder. Yu's exclamation of surprise told her that she hadn't been wrong about the visible mark.

"Tell me," he demanded.

"Tohru…" began Minako hesitantly.

"He did this to you?" Yu asked quietly. He sounded disappointed, and oddly regretful. No one else, thought Minako, would have even bothered to be surprised by the idea that Tohru might have done something to hurt her. They would have just taken it for granted that he'd be out for her blood.

Yu's disappointment at the idea was exactly what Minako needed to hear. Suddenly, something inside her began to relax. The story got easier to tell. "No," she told him. "No, he didn't." Then she told him the truth.

Yu listened patiently while Minako recounted the tale of how she and Tohru had been meeting recently outside the Velvet Room, and how she'd begun encouraging him to help her solve the case. Yu, it seemed, was very familiar with the murders of the two young women that had taken place over the past month. He had not, however, heard about the third body. His careful silence made her a little bit uncomfortable as she explained what had happened the night before. Yu was always a good listener. She wished that, for once, he might interrupt or interject. At least that way she'd have some idea what he was thinking.

"So?" she asked him, when she'd finally finished pouring out as much as she had to tell. "What do you think?"

Yu was thoughtfully silent for another long moment. "I think," he told her eventually, "that you've done something that the rest of us couldn't do."

"What?" asked Minako, taken aback. What did that have to do with anything?

"You forced Adachi to admit that there really is a truth, a truth that has some meaning to him personally," Yu continued. "The truth is, he didn't want to let you die. You aren't meaningless. Your life matters. I'm impressed. I wasn't sure he'd ever let himself learn something like that. I spent most of a year trying to teach him…but I guess it took someone like you."

"That's…that's not the point," insisted Minako, slightly embarrassed. "What am I supposed to do?"

She could feel Yu's eyes on her, and was glad for once that she couldn't meet his gaze. "Are you going to let him die?" he asked. "If they catch him again, and can get him for another murder, they won't let him get away with life."

Minako knew that he was right. There was no way that they'd risk letting him escape a second time. "He saved my life," she said. "I can't let that happen. I have to protect him. It's…it's the right thing to do."

"And?" asked Yu.

Minako stopped. "And what?" she asked.

"Is that the only reason?" he insisted. Minako didn't say anything. She knew that her blush was getting worse. This really, she told herself angrily, wasn't the time to be having inappropriate girlish feelings.

Apparently sensing Minako's embarrassment, Yu relented. "Do you remember what I told you," he asked her, "maybe six months ago, when you came to find me here after the appearance of the rabbit shadow inside my mind? I told you that we aren't so different, Adachi and I."

"He's a coward," murmured Minako, remembering that conversation. "He's too weak to handle the power he's been given. He can't control it by himself."

"That's right," agreed Yu. "So, maybe he shouldn't have to do it alone. I never did. Neither did you. We took our strength from the people we love. We still do, even without our personas. You're doing it now, coming and talking to me about this. Maybe that's really where strength comes from. It was cruel of Izanami to give him that power. He didn't have anyone to protect him from it, not like we did. Maybe that's not the case anymore."

Minako swallowed hard. She took a deep breath. "I need your help," she told him, aware that it was an uncharacteristic plea. "I can't go back in there…with him."

Yu reached out and gave her a comforting little squeeze on the shoulder. "You're not alone either, remember?" he said.

**That night, in the TV world…**

"Adachi-san?" Nanako's timid voice broke in to Adachi's brooding. "Oh…what's…what's this place? This is scary…"

He looked up to see Nanako walking towards him, glancing around in terrified awe at the walls of Magatsu Inaba. How had she gotten in here? Had Igor sent her? What kind of an idiot would send an eight year old girl into a place like this?

"What do you want?" he muttered.

"C-can you come out?" asked Nanako.

For a brief, breathtaking moment, Adachi wondered if somehow, against all the hopes he wasn't bothering to have, that girl had come back.

"Big Bro wants to see you," finished Nanako. "He's outside."

That was a surprise, thought Adachi, even as the little tendrils of hope died instantly away. Narukami, huh? In the six months that Adachi had been trapped in the Velvet Room, that kid hadn't come to see him even once. Adachi had been sure that Yu would take the opportunity to chide him or lecture him, to crow over him for having lost not once, but twice Then again, it wasn't really in Yu's nature to make a big deal out of stuff like that. It was probably enough just to know that he'd gotten the better of Adachi. He wouldn't need to lord it over him. He was just too damn perfect for that.

So, then, Adachi asked himself, why would he be here now?

"Sure, whatever," he said, with a shrug. "Yeah, I'm coming."

Nanako was obviously relieved to get out of Magatsu Inaba, and Adachi couldn't help agreeing with her. At least once he'd left that place, the voices in his head stayed in his head. He couldn't hear them echoing off of the walls anymore.

They walked through the Velvet Room together, and out into the shopping district, where Yu was sitting in his wheelchair, waiting for them.

"Hello, Adachi-san," said Yu politely.

Adachi sneered at him. "Took you a while, huh?" he asked. "So, you're finally here. Why? Why now?"

"Why," echoed Yu calmly, "did you come back to Inaba?"

Adachi was not interested in playing questions. "Who the hell cares? In the end, it doesn't matter. I was locked up there, and now I'm' locked up here. It's all the same. Half the time I don't even notice the difference."

"That's not true," insisted Yu. "Anyway, I care. You know why I care. Minako told me that you came back here to look for me. Did you?"

"Heard you were dead," muttered Adachi. "I wanted to know if I'd won, after all. Apparently not. You're just annoyingly hard to kill."

Yu was quiet for a moment. "I don't think you wanted to win," he said, after a moment's reflection. "I think you wanted to be proved wrong. You were afraid, when you heard about my death, that maybe you h ad been right. Maybe there was nothing real to care about in the world. Maybe everything I stood for was a lie. You didn't want that to be true. You were looking for a way out. You still are."

"You," said Adachi, "are full of shit. It's this problem you have. You are constantly spouting shit. I'd work on that, if I were you."

"No," countered Yu, "you wouldn't. If you were me? You could have been me. You wish you'd been me."

"Tch." Adachi was pretty sure he'd had enough of this conversation. "Is that what you came here to say? Nice ego you've got there. It's come a long way since I saw you last. What, did somebody give you a medal, or something? 'Biggest dumbass?'"

For just a moment, Adachi thought he saw a flicker of annoyance on Yu's face. He was finally making an impact…not that it really mattered. Still, it was at least a little gratifying to see that the perfect hero of the hour could flinch when provoked.

"I'm trying to help," said Yu.

"Help what?" asked Adachi. "What do I need from you? What do I need from anybody? I've got a pretty nice set up here. The Velvet Room's not so bad. I can have anything I want, just by thinking about it. It's a place inside the mind, right? So…"

"Minako sent me," interrupted Yu.

Adachi forgot was he was talking about. So, he thought, she had been thinking about him.

"What does she want?" he asked, trying to sound like he didn't care. It didn't work. He cared. He cared so much it ached in his chest. Maybe, just maybe, Yu would say her name again. He liked hearing her name. It brutalized him in a very satisfying way.

"They found your gun at the scene," Yu was saying. "You have to stay here for a while until things quiet down. Don't go out." Suddenly Yu turned more aggressive and serious than he had been throughout the whole conversation. "Do not," he insisted carefully, "go anywhere with Nanako. Leave Nanako out of this. She doesn't need to be involved. Do you understand me?"

Adachi laughed. "Hey, my hands are tied," he reminded Yu bitterly. "I can't go anywhere she doesn't take me, remember? You talk to her about it, if you have a problem. She'll listen to you. You're her 'Big Bro' after all. She thinks you're some kind of god." Stopping for a moment, he added, "What do you mean, 'die down?' I know Dojima-san. He won't let it rest until he's found the guy who did this, and that guy is me. I'm not hiding forever. I'd rather just let him shoot me."

Yu shook his head. "That won't happen. Minako's taking care of it."

That honestly surprised Adachi. "She's doing what?" he asked.

**Meanwhile, at the police station…**

Late that night, after even Dojima had left the building, Minako crept back into the police station.

The security guard on night shift greeted her as she walked in. "Hey, staying late again? Jeez, Dojima-san really works you hard. I hope you get paid well for this."

Minako tried to smile around her nerves. "It's okay," she insisted. "I like having something to do. I really don't mind the extra work. Anyway, I'm just here to pick up some things. I left in a hurry this afternoon…forgot my house keys."

"Hah!" Minako heard the guard start to head off in the other direction. "All right, I won't keep you. Be safe on the way home, okay? There's still some crazy guy out there…although I guess, if he's killing the bad guys, it's not so bad, right? Still…"

As soon as the guard's footsteps drifted far enough away, Minako felt her way along the wall to Dojima's desk. Since she didn't know which drawer it was in, she had to force herself to open each one of them and run her hands along the contents. If it hadn't been for the winter gloves that she was wearing, she knew she would have suffered several paper cuts from all of the documents she had to finger as she searched for the one object she was after.

Of course, she didn't find it until she reached the bottom desk drawer. Straining her ears for any sign of the guard's return, Minako pulled the gun out of the bottom drawer, and then carefully took the cloth she'd prepared out of her pocket. Experienced as she was at using her fingers to find the notches and crevices in things, it didn't take Minako very long to wipe off every inch of the gun, and to place it gently and soundlessly back into the drawer.

Exhaling the breath that she'd been holding in, Minako tiptoed away from Dojima's desk. "I'm going home," she called to the security guard. "Good night!"

"Yeah, be safe," he called after her, as she left the station.


	13. Twelve - December 21 and 22

**Author's Note: **Wow, let me just say that trying to go from writing tormented Adachi in **Messiah** to upbeat Nanako in **Piecekeeping** is doing very strange things to my head. Add the fact that I'm also trying to get into the headspace of Horatio in "Hamlet," and it's suddenly becoming clearer and clearer why I might be having trouble sleeping. They say that method acting can be bad for you because it puts you too close to the character. I wonder if that applies to writing as well…well, I hope not.

The solution to this is definitely NOT reading **Flowerchild777**'s new story. That story is really bone-chilling and makes an impression. You should probably go read it right now. Don't worry, this one isn't going anywhere. It'll be here when you get back.

Anyway, here's Junpei, thank goodness, to give us a brief respite from all of the angst. Oh, and I put a little present in this chapter for those of you who have been waiting for this. Not a big thing, but I know, it's overdue.

**Twelve – December 21/22**

The next day went by for Minako in a blur of hazy relief.

She walked into work that morning half expecting to be arrested on the spot. There was no way, she thought, that Dojima wouldn't realize what she'd done. After all, he was an experienced detective. She was very new to this whole criminal activity thing, unless she counted breaking into the school a few times back at Gekkoukan. The guard must have noticed what she was doing, or maybe Dojima would just know, based on some sign or trace that she'd unknowingly left behind.

Oddly enough, all Dojima said when she sat down to her desk was "Morning."

"Um…morning," said Minako.

A few moments of silence elapsed as Dojima hit a few keys on the keyboard and then grumbled under his breath.

"That gun you found…you're sending it out today, right?" asked Minako, tempting fate.

"Yup," said Dojima. She heard him pull open the desk drawer, probably the same one she'd been messing with the night before. "Good thing you reminded me…I'd better do that now."

That, it seemed, was that. There were no recriminations, no repercussions. Apparently, Minako had gotten away with it. She wasn't sure if she should be sorry or glad. Of course, it was fantastic that she wasn't going to be locked up. She was so relieved about that she felt almost faint. On the other hand, though, she had just covered up a murder, and it hadn't been that hard to do. What did that say about the efficacy of the Inaba police force?

The rest of the day went by without incident, and Minako left the station that afternoon with every intention of doing some unfortunately last minute shopping and packing for her trip to Iwatodai. She thought about calling Yu to ask him how things had gone in the Velvet Room, but somehow, she couldn't bring herself to do it.

If there was anything to worry about, he probably would have already let her know. She could trust him, she told herself. After all, that was why she'd gone to him for help in the first place. Maybe, now, she could put this whole thing behind her and move on.

At least, that was what she thought she wanted. When she curled up in bed that night, however, two different images of Tohru's face kept floating through the part of her mind that had served for so long as a substitute for her eyes. They were the two faces she'd really seen of him, on each of those separate occasions when the world had inexplicably granted her a moment of regained sight.

First, she saw him crouched on the floor, handcuffed and defeated, looking miserable, vulnerable, and alone. That was the man her heart went out to when she heard the nervous laughter in his voice, or felt his hands trembling as he touched her. Then, she saw him again, the way he'd looked only days before, after shooting her attacker mercilessly full of holes outside the train station. Crazed and exuberant, feeding off of the lust for the kill, with blood dripping down his forehead.

She wanted to dream about the first image she had of him, but inevitably her nightmares only showed her the second one. Sleep did not come easily to her, and she was tossing and turning in and out of those unwelcome dreams all night long.

The next morning, she woke up when someone knocked on the door.

"What, seriously?" asked Junpei, when Minako swung the door open, still in her pajamas. "You're not even up yet? Man, now we're gonna be late…"

"Sorry," mumbled Minako. "Couldn't sleep…must have missed my alarm…"

Junpei sighed. "Well, I guess I should have known. Girls always take forever to get ready anyway. Don't just stand there, go, go, go! I'm gonna wait in the car, unless you want me to help you get dressed."

Minako laughed. "No," she assured him, "I'm okay, thanks."

"Well," murmured Junpei wistfully, "you can't blame a guy for trying."

Minako knew that he was being a pig just to try and cheer her up. She smiled as she started throwing some clothes into a pile, and climbed into the shower.

When they finally did get on the road, Junpei seemed to be in very high spirits. He sang terribly along with the radio while they pulled out of Inaba and started speeding up to match the limits.

"You're in a good mood," remarked Minako, settling back against the passenger seat.

"You know I am," agreed Junpei. "Hey, this is gonna be great. We're on our way to stay in one of the best hotels in Japan! Man, Mitsuru-san says they've got everything there. There's even a pool, and a gym…"

Minako yawned. "Oh," she said teasingly. "I thought you were just excited to get to see all of our friends again, after so long."

"Yeah," agreed Junpei casually, "Sure, that too." Suddenly, he reached over and pulled on the end of Minako's scarf, forcing her to reach up hastily to hold it in place. "Don't you wanna take that off?" he asked. "Hey, are you cold in here? I can turn the heat up a bit."

"I'm fine," muttered Minako. She'd almost forgotten about the scarf. "Really, I just…I'm okay."

"Whatever," said Junpei, apparently unperturbed. "So, let me tell you about the plan. We're gonna drive up there today, spend a couple of days hanging out with everybody, then turn around on December 24 and bring them all back to Inaba with us!"

Minako was startled. "What?" she asked. "Why?"

"Uh…" Junpei seemed a little less confident about his answer to that. "Well, Yosuke really wanted me to. He's got some questions he wants to ask about the Velvet Room. Anyway, I think we should have a big Christmas party, just like last year. I even cleaned up the place a bit. It'll be a reunion! Aw, do you remember that cake Fuuka and the girls made the last time? Oh, I guess Shinjiro-san did most of the work, though."  
Shinjiro's name grated unpleasantly against Minako's sleep-deprived nerves. Junpei must have seen that on her face, because he sighed.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Guess I shouldn't bring up that stuff, huh?"

Minako shook her head. "No, you can," she said. "We're probably going to see him when we get there anyway. I…sort of want to see him. I want to know that he's doing all right."

"Yeah," said Junpei, "and Akihiko-san will be there too, right? Jeez, this is gonna be one hell of a trip." Suddenly, he started to sing. "Allllll my exes live in Iwatodaiiiiii…!"

"Wha…what are you singing?" asked Minako, trying not to wince.

Junpei laughed. "Nothing! I made it up! What, you don't like it?"

Thankfully, the singing didn't continue. Eventually, Junpei had to focus on the road, and as soon as he did, Minako let the movement of the car rock her back to a beneficently dreamless sleep.

She didn't wake up again until the jolting of the car startled her as it came to a stop. "Here we are!" crowed Junpei. "Man, you were out cold for hours. All the things I could have drawn on your face…there's an opportunity I'll never get back." He sighed.

Minako blinked. "We're…here already?" she asked. "I'm sorry…I was supposed to stay awake to keep you company."

"Eh," said Junpei, "you can make it up to me on the ride back. Looks like there are some people here to see us! Oh man, I feel kinda like a celebrity."

Minako wasn't entirely sure how that made sense, but she climbed out of the passenger side door and was almost immediately engulfed in a hug by a pair of small but powerful arms.

"Mina-chan!" squealed Yukari in delight. "I'm so happy to see you! I know it's only been a few months, but it feels like forever. Oh, wow, you look great! Have you been working out with Chie-chan? Hah, that'd whip anybody into shape."

"Minako-chan," murmured Fuuka warmly. "It's nice to see you. Did you have a pleasant trip? Did Junpei behave himself?"

"What, me?" interjected Junpei, feigning horror. "Hey, she wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for me."

"That," Mitsuru informed them, "is probably the case. I hear that Minako has become quite the hard worker back in Inaba. No doubt she would have stayed on to complete her tasks if you hadn't forced her into this vacation."

"Good to see you too, Mitsuru-san," muttered Junpei. "Man, you never change. Oh, and hey! Ken! Did you get older or something? Yeah, you look it. What are you, now, fourteen? Jeez…now I'm starting to feel old."

"You're not old," remarked Ken in his quiet way. "Um…hey, Minako-san. How…how are you?"

Suddenly, a very heavy hand rested on Minako's arm. "I have been waiting for you for a long time," said a mechanical voice, laced with enthusiasm that shouldn't have been possible from something that wasn't human. "It is a great pleasure to see you again at last, Minako-chan."

"Aigis!" Minako was amazed. "I didn't know you'd be here! When did you come back to Iwatodai? How are you? What have you been doing?" For a brief moment, Minako was glad that Aigis hadn't come to visit her in Inaba, when the others had come to celebrate Minako's birthday with her six months ago. Somehow, she was sure that Yosuke would never be able to understand or accept what Aigis had done on Minako's behalf. He was having enough trouble coping with Junpei being around. Still, it was fantastic to find out that she was still doing well, and had reconnected with her old friends.

There was one voice, however, that Minako didn't hear. Biting her lip, she asked, "Wait, where's Akihiko? I was hoping that he'd-!"

From behind Minako came an exuberant bark, followed by Akihiko's familiar chuckle. "I'm here," he told her, reaching out to give her a friendly clap on the shoulder. "Look who else came to see you. Say hello, Koro-chan."

There was another bark, and then something wet began licking at Minako's face.

"Koromaru!" shouted Minako, throwing her arms around the dog. "I missed you, boy!"

The reunited friends chatted and laughed at each other as they all piled into the hotel. Junpei and Mitsuru went to handle the check in, while Yukari and Fuuka regaled Minako with stories of what had been happening recently in their lives.

"I'm so excited," Yukari was saying, "that you'll finally get to meet my husband. I've told him so much about you, it's like he knows you already. Maybe you and Stupei can come over tomorrow for lunch. Fuuka, you should come too!"

"Oh," murmured Fuuka regretfully, "I can't. I'm catering a Christmas party tomorrow night…I'll have to get ready."

Yukari made a disappointed noise. "Ugh," she said, "no fun. Can't Shinjiro do it without you? After all, it's not like he…"

She trailed off, and went silent. There was a very awkward moment, during which Minako could only imagine the two girls giving each other significant, panicky looks.

"So, Shinji is working for Fuuka now?" asked Minako. "That's wonderful. I was hoping he'd find something to do that really let him use his talents."

"Y-yeah," stammered Yukari, sounding a little relieved. "You, um…you haven't spoken to him since uh, since the two of you broke up, have you?"

Minako frowned. "No, I haven't," she admitted. "I'm glad he's doing well. Maybe he and I will have a chance to talk over the next couple of days. I'd like to settle things with him…and maybe to say that I'm sorry. I wish…I wish I'd treated him differently. He deserved better. I want him to know that."

Again, silence stretched out between them. Luckily, Junpei jumped in to save the moment.

"Hey, come on!" he said, pulling insistently on Minako's arm. "Our room's ready. We can dump our stuff, and then go try out the pool! Are you coming too, Yuka-tan? Aw, jeez, this is gonna be the best vacation ever…"


	14. Thirteen - December 22

**Author's Note: **I've got another **Piecekeeping** update on the burner, but I don't think I'll get that out until tomorrow night…I really have to devote some extra time to my lines, tonight. I'm supposed to be off book by next week.

While I go off and study Horatio, here's some more **Messiah** that I wrote up on a whim while trapped in transit. It's a relatively happy one, for once. Seems odd that taking the story out of Inaba and bringing it back to Iwatodai makes the mood happier…that's very different from the way things were in the original games. Still, I suppose these characters have been through enough for a while. It's time for them to get something back. Remember, the **Piecekeeping** story is really all about closure, and the chance to move on. Minako might need that more than anybody else, so here's a little bit for her.

We'll return you to your regularly scheduled disturbing romantic angst very soon.

**Thirteen – December 22**

Apparently, Junpei hadn't been joking about the pool. Almost immediately after they'd found places for their suitcases, he started insisted that they go try it out. Minako, who had been forward thinking enough to bring her swimsuit, hadn't been swimming in a very long time, and she was surprised by how self conscious she was about putting her swimsuit on. She'd never actually worn it, after trying it on in the store. Everyone had just ended up being too busy to take the beach trip they'd talked about the previous summer, and even Minako wasn't either brave or foolish enough to decide to go swimming on her own, without the use of her eyes.

She was delighted, therefore, to find that the suit even still fit her.

"Dude," said Junpei, as she walked out into the hallway holding her towel against her chest. "This…this is just like Yakushima. Gorgeous girls in bathing suits…it's just a shame that we don't have the sun and the sand." He sighed. "I guess we'll have to wait for next year, huh? Oh well. At least that's something to look forward to."

They took the elevator down to the pool, where Minako could hear the voices of all of her friends, who were apparently still there waiting for them.

"Pool party!" announced Junpei.

"Um, we're not even staying at the hotel," Yukari said. "Are we… allowed to use the pool?"

"It won't be a problem," Mitsuru assured her.

"Are you sure that it is advisable for you to swim, Minako-chan?" asked Aigis solicitously. "Without being able to see, you may be vulnerable to sudden and unexpected attack."

Junpei chortled. "You bet she is," he said. "Ready, Mina-tan? In we go!"

Minako shrieked as Junpei grabbed her around the waist and cannon balled into the pool, pulling her underwater with him. She kicked frantically, managing to scramble to the surface just in time to hear the concerned murmurs of many of her friends.

"Hey, are you okay?" called Akihiko. "What the hell, Junpei? She could have hit her head or something."

"Stupei, you never think!" shouted Yukari. "Minako could get scared, being thrown in like that! She can't even see what's going on!"

"What?" asked Junpei. "Aw, come on, she's fine. You're fine, right? Well? You tell 'em."

Minako knew she should be touched by how much her friends worried about her safety. Still, even as their care for her made her smile, she bristled a bit at how protective they were being. She wasn't some little kid, after all. It had been almost two years since she'd gone blind, and she had gone through and overcome so much in the meantime. She didn't need to be coddled anymore.

"Okay," she said, turning in the direction of Junpei's voice. "Actually, I think instead of telling them, I'll show them…"

With a calculated leap out of the water, Minako threw herself at the place where she thought Junpei probably was. She wasn't wrong. He let out a yell as she landed on him and dunked him back under the water in the process.

"Wha-?" he managed, spluttering and spitting as he came back up for air.

"Got you that time," said Minako, grinning and wiping water off of her face. From the poolside, she could hear the laughter and approval of her friends.

One by one, all of them ended up getting into the water. Ken and Akihiko began doing laps together around the pool, while Mitsuru, Yukari, and Fuuka hung by the wall, talking amongst themselves. Aigis, as far as Minako could tell by listening, was playing with Koromaru, tossing a beach ball back and forth with him in the water.

"We are totally not supposed to have pets in the pool," Junpei remarked, laughing. "Good thing Mitsuru owns pretty much everything…otherwise we'd be in a lot of trouble for this."

Minako nodded. From every side, she could hear the sound of her friends having a great time, something that she hadn't realized just how much she'd missed during her time in Inaba. Of course, her new friends were wonderful, and she loved them all very much. Nothing, however, would ever quite be able to compare to the times she'd spent as a member of SEES, learning that the world and the friends she had in it were worth sacrificing herself to save.

"It's just like old times," she murmured thoughtfully. "For a moment there, I thought those times were over forever."

Junpei was quiet for a very long moment. Minako had almost begun wondering if he'd gone off to talk to one of the others, before she felt his hand on her arm.

"Let's get out," he said unexpectedly. "I forgot, there's something I want to do, now that we're here."

"Already?" asked Minako. "But…it feels like we just got in!"

"We can swim anytime," said Junpei. "Trust me, this is more important."

Uncertain what could be so "important" on their first vacation in two years, Minako nonetheless did as he asked and climbed out of the pool. She and Junpei went back up to the room to find their clothes, and when they were dressed again, Junpei led her back outside into the parking lot. She heard him pull open the door to the car.

"We can't leave," she insisted. "I thought you were the one who was so excited to spend time at the hotel. Everyone will want to know where we went, all of a sudden. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing," said Junpei distractedly. "Nah, its all fine. Seriously, just trust me on this one. You're gonna like it, I promise."

They drove on together in silence, with Minako now totally confused as to their destination. Maybe, she thought, they were going to Paulownia mall, to try out Club Escapade again, now that Junpei, at least, was old enough to get in legally. That was something he'd always seemed to want to do back when they were in high school. Or maybe, instead, Junpei had just gotten hungry and they were heading out to one of their old haunts to have something to eat. Minako was almost glad that she couldn't see the streets and shops that she knew they must be passing on their way through the city. Somehow, just seeing those places in the back of her mind's eye made her start to choke up with emotions that she couldn't quite describe. It wasn't sadness. It wasn't happiness. Instead, it was both of those things, and neither of them, some place between her feelings that only moments of nostalgia ever seemed to be able to tap into.

"Hey, here we are," said Junpei, as he finally stopped the car. "Man, this place looks just the same as it always did."

Minako frowned. "Where are we?" she asked.

Junpei came around and opened the door for her. "I'll tell you in a minute," he said. "Here, you're gonna want to hold on to me for this one. There's stuff everywhere, and we're gonna have to do some stairs."

Minako listened to the sound of what she imagined was Junpei opening and closing a large, heavy door. She held his hand in order to let him guide her through what seemed like some kind of hallway, and eventually up several flights of stairs.

"Mitsuru-san had them leave it open for us today," he told her as they climbed. "You were saying earlier how she owns everything, right? That really comes in handy sometimes…"

"We'll have to thank her," agreed Minako. "It sounds like she put a lot of effort into this trip. That was very kind of her. She and I…haven't always been the best of friends recently. Everything that happened with Akihiko made things a bit awkward."

Junpei snorted. "Some things are more important than guys, I guess," he told her.

Minako smiled. "Somehow," she murmured, "that sounds very strange coming from you."

Abruptly, the stairs ended, and Minako stepped out onto some kind of floor or platform. She could feel the cold winter air all around her, and she shivered in it, unconsciously drawing a little closer to Junpei as she pulled her scarf tighter around her neck.

"So?" asked Junpei. Minako could hear the boyish eagerness in his voice. "Have you guessed where we are yet? Come on, give it a try."

Minako honestly had no idea. "We're…definitely outside, somewhere," she hazarded. "I can tell you that much. We're outside, but we're upstairs. How can that…?"

Suddenly, realization dawned. She sucked in a sharp breath, and heard Junpei's answering laugh. "Are we…are we at Gekkoukan?" she asked him. "We're on the roof of our high school, aren't we?"

"Correct," said Aigis' voice, from somewhere to Minako's left. "Very good, Minako-chan. Your prowess at determining your surroundings, even without your vision is commendable."

"Yes," agreed Fuuka's voice, sounding as though it was behind Minako. "It's good to see how well you're doing. We were…really worried about you. I'm so glad."

Slowly, Minako began to hear the arrival of more and more footsteps, until she could feel the warmth of multiple bodies occupying the spaces around her. Junpei's hand was still holding hers, and he squeezed it comfortingly as she kept moving her head back and forth, trying to take in every sensation at the same time.

"Fuuka? Aigis? You're both here?" she asked.

"We all are," murmured Akihiko.

"Yes," agreed Ken. "Welcome home, Minako-san."

"Welcome home!" exclaimed Yukari.

Minako could feel the tears welling up in her eyes, as she listened to the voices of her friends, all coming together in the very same place that she'd heard them for the last time so many years ago. They were all here together, all of the people whom she'd promised to protect with her life. They were okay, now. They were safe, they were happy, they were moving on with their lives, and somehow, magically, unexpectedly, miraculously, she was now here to share that wonderful future with them.

"Guys…" she whispered, the tears catching slightly in her voice. "I'm…I'm so happy…this is really it, isn't it? It's going to be all right now. It's finally over. We're all going to be all right."

"Course we are," muttered Junpei, and Minako was almost certain that she could hear some signs of emotion in his voice, too. "The gang's all back together again. This time it's for good, too. We're not gonna let anything happen to you. Not a damn thing."

As Minako stood there, bathed in the winter air and surrounded by the only family she'd ever care to have, she listened to the voice in the back of her mind silently telling Junpei and everyone else that she wasn't sorry. She didn't regret any of it. If she could go back and do it again, she would. She never, ever wanted to let anything happen to any of them, either. That was the promise she had made, and she still intended to keep it, no matter what happened. That's what friendship really as. That's what it meant to love someone.

It was only when she and Junpei were back in the car together, heading again for the hotel, that Minako remembered the conversation that she'd had with Yu, just days before she'd left Inaba for Iwatodai. They'd been talking about Tohru, and about the way he couldn't seem to pull together the strength to deal with the power of persona.

"Maybe he shouldn't have to do it alone," Yu had told her. "We took our strength from the people we love. Maybe that's really where strength comes from."

Yes, she thought. Yu was right. People were never meant to be alone. Dealing with the power of persona on her own would have been impossible. It would have broken her, would have torn her apart. It was only because of the friends that she'd made, and the love that she'd found that she'd been able to pull through and accomplish the things that she had done.

"Junpei," she said. "I need to go to the Velvet Room tomorrow."

"Huh?" asked Junpei. "What, seriously? In the middle of the trip? Are you feeling okay? You're not getting a headache, are you?"

Minako shook her head. "No, I'm fine," she assured him. "There's just something I have to do. Will you help me get in? I promise, it won't take too long."

There was a pause before Junpei answered. "Yeah, sure," he said. "But…you're not gonna do anything stupid, are you? Hey, what's this all about?"

Minako didn't say anything. It was too much for her to burden him with right now. Besides, he might not understand.

The difference was that now, she thought she did.


	15. Fourteen - December 23

**Author's Note: **Oh man, I really don't feel good…wow. I wanted to write two chapters tonight, but…well, we'll see. Maybe I can still do it.

Anyway, now we are back to angsting again, just like I promised. The next chapter is full of exciting, epically plot-changing angst, though! Stay tuned!

Be patient, my favorite and beloved readers! I promise, we will see Shinji again, and soon, but there's some other business that has to get taken care of first.

**Fourteen – December 23**

Minako did not know what horrible, ungodly hour of the morning it was when she woke up to the sounds of Junpei's feet thudding against the floor. He should have been asleep in the next bed over, especially after the late night they'd spent in the hotel lounge with all the other former members of SEES. Instead, for some reason, he was up and walking around, and not doing it too quietly, either.

"Junpei?" she muttered blearily. "What's going on?"

The sound of his footsteps stopped. "Sorry," he mumbled. "Didn't mean to wake you up. It's nothing, go back to sleep."

Part of Minako wanted to do just that. Instead, trying to cover a yawn with one hand, she told him, "Yeah, that'd be great…maybe I could, if you'd stop shuffling around and making all that noise. Need me to read you a bedtime story?"

She expected him to laugh, or to fire back one of his supposedly witty retorts. Instead, he just sat in silence for a moment. "Sorry," he said again.

That brought Minako fully awake. "Hey," she asked, "What's up? You sound terrible." Swinging her legs over the end of the bed, she stood up and groped around for a bit until she found him, standing over by the window.

"I was just thinking," he mused, with an edge to his voice that Minako knew was the sound of him trying to hold back some feeling that he didn't want to admit to, "that maybe we're the lucky ones. You know, we got our happy ending, but…not everybody came with us. I wish…I wish everybody could have been there, last night."

"You're talking about Chidori," murmured Minako.

"Yeah…" Junpei sighed. "Guess I am."

Minako knew that Chidori and Junpei had moved to Inaba together only a year or so before she'd awoken and found herself at the train station there. Junpei had told her that Chidori had been killed in a car accident, but he'd never been too clear about the details. Minako hadn't pushed him for more information. At the time, it hadn't seemed like the polite thing to do.

Now, she wanted to know. "Why did she die?" she asked him.

"Told you," grunted Junpei. "Road accident."

"No," persisted d Minako. "That's 'how' she died. I want to know 'why' she died. Last year, you told me you weren't sure if it had really been an accident or not. Is that still true?"

"Maybe," muttered Junpei. "I wish it wasn't. I wish I knew. I thought she was happy with me, but…maybe that was all me, and not much her."

"I think you were the one bright spot in her world," Minako assured him.

Apparently, Junpei had to think about that for a moment. "You know," he mused, "I'm not sure about that. She was…she was so many different people, sometimes. Back when you knew her, she'd say crazy stuff about how nobody liked her and she didn't' have any friends, but…I never saw her try to make any friends. Then that whole Strega thing, like…like she didn't believe that life had enough meaning to take it seriously. I never got that. I don't get how somebody could think that way. What's more important than human life? I don't…I mean, there isn't' anything, right? Some days, she'd act like none of it mattered. Then…after you, uh…after you-!"

"I know," said Minako. "It's okay."

"Right." Junpei swallowed. "Anyway, after you knew her, she started changing. Caring about things, wanting things. One day, I came home and she was crying, cause she'd seen somebody's cat run over in the street. She was sitting there on the curb trying to bring it back to life, but, you know, she couldn't anymore. She was so upset about it…even if it was just a stupid cat. She wanted it to live so damn bad…I thought she wanted to live, too. I was sure about that."

Minako frowned. She hadn't known Chidori very well when they'd' both been alive. Mostly Chidori had been either an enemy, or a nuisance, taking up the SEES members time with her antics in the hospital. In the end, though, Minako owed Chidori something she'd never be able to forget. She owed Chidori Junpei's life.

"You gave her that," she told him. "You gave her back her power to care about things. She wanted to live for you, Junpei. You made her world a better place."

"Maybe," said Junpei. "But sometimes I think…what if it wasn't enough? What if I wasn't enough? What if it's my fault for not being-!"

"It's not," interrupted Minako. "Junpei, I'm sure it was an accident. Car accidents happen all the time, every day. You know that. I know that."

For some reason, when he spoke again, Junpei sounded like the older man that Minako so often and easily forgotten that he now was. "I want to, anyway," he said. "But I can't stop thinking about it. Especially now, when…when the rest of us are ready to move on, you know? Why didn't she get that chance? I bet if I'd had more time with her, maybe I could have made her want to stay."

They stood together at the window for a few more minutes, until Minako hazarded, "Do you want me to stay up with you for a while? We can talk. Maybe it'll help."

"Nah," insisted Junpei. "I'm just spoiling the mood. This is our vacation, right? We're supposed to be having a good time. Go back and get some beauty sleep. You probably need it anyway."

Minako knew that he was trying to make her laugh, and so she, dutifully, tried to laugh. Neither of them had their hearts in it.

"Okay," she told him. "Goodnight, Junpei."

In the end, though, she never did go back to bed. Instead, she waited with him by the window, in a show of silent solidarity, until he decided to give sleep another try.

**A few hours later, in the Velvet Room…**

Adachi watched with very little interest as the Amagi girl and that obnoxious tomboy Satonaka headed past him for the door to that led to Yu and Minako's minds.

"Hey, wasn't Junpei supposed to be on patrol today?" asked Chie. "I kinda had plans with my mom until Yosuke called and asked me to come here…"

"Junpei's on vacation in Iwatodai, with Minako-chan," Yukiko reminded her. "Yosuke must have made a mistake with the patrol schedule…he has been pretty distracted lately."

"Ohh, that's right!" said Chie. "Yeah, I totally forgot about that! I wonder how they're doing? Vacations are expensive for kids our age."

Adachi was just getting ready to return to his typical daily occupation of zoning out at the far wall, when Yukiko said something that, for once, got his full attention.

"Iwatodai…" she murmured. "Shinjiro-san went back to Iwatodai, didn't he? Do you think she'll see him there?"

Chie shrugged. "Maybe," she said. "I don't know, it's been six months since they broke up…maybe they're ready to talk things over again. They did seem really good together, before everything got so crazy…"

The two girls went through the door, and Adachi lost track of their voices as it slammed shut behind them. He knew that he was supposed, as the assistant, to follow them and make sure they didn't get eaten by shadows. Normally, he probably would have gone, just for the chance either to defeat a shadow, or for the satisfaction of watching them actually get attacked by one, but now he was too busy focusing on something else.

Shinjiro, huh? Hadn't that been the name of that guard guy that Minako used to sleep with? So, she was back in Iwatodai with him? He should have known. It was just the kind of thing that she probably would do, bouncing around from guy to guy. She'd done it before, with him, after all. She hadn't even waited until she'd ditched the other guy before she'd started coming on to him. Women never stayed single for long if they could find a willing sap to fawn all over them. Two was even better than one.

That was typical, he knew. It was the obvious thing for her to do. Then why, he wondered, was he so damn angry? There was a hot, choked up sort of feeling in his chest that made it harder to breathe.

"Heh." He gritted his teeth around a mirthless grin that turned into a grimace before it was finished with his face. Now, he was the one who was being a dumbass. She'd really had him going, and he'd almost let himself start believing her when she'd promised him she wasn't like all the others. He'd always said that she was good. In the end, though, she'd let him down, disappointed him like everyone else he'd ever met.

Maybe, he admitted grudgingly to himself, Yu had been right. Maybe when it was all over, he'd never really wanted to win the game. It was definitely his game this time, knowing that the one person he'd been uncertain about had proved him right in the end. There wasn't any truth worth fighting for. Not even she had managed to keep up that flimsy pretense. She wasn't going to fight for him, so why should he waste time fighting for her? Hell, he'd almost gotten himself killed for her.

That knowledge should have made it all the easier for him to let her go, but for some reason, he couldn't just stop thinking about it. Why couldn't she have tried a little harder to prove him wrong? He didn't' know what the next step was, now that there was no one left to call his bluff.

Just like him, the victory was empty.

**Meanwhile, in Iwatodai…**

As agreed, Junpei and Minako went over to Yukari's new house that afternoon, to have lunch with her and her husband, Kippei, who reminded Minako so much of Junpei that she found herself forced to stifle her laughter several times over the course of the afternoon.

"What's so funny?" asked Junpei, as they helped clear up the dishes after the meal. "You had that stupid look on your face the whole time you were eating."

"You didn't notice him?" asked Minako.

Junpei sounded nonplussed. "Notice who?" he asked.

Minako just smiled to herself. "Oh, it's nothing," she assured him. "Don't worry about it." That said, she was sure that she'd find the opportunity to tease Yukari about it later. After all, wasn't that what friends were really for?

It wasn't until after the lunch had all been cleared away, and Junpei was making friends with Kippei while watching TV on the sofa that Yukari put a hand on Minako's arm and drew her into the other room. "Listen," she said, "Um…I want to talk to you about something."

Minako frowned. "What is it?" she asked. "You sound…so serious. Is everything all right?"

"Yeah, um…" Yukari didn't seem to know quite how to begin. "Minako, do you remember yesterday, when we all came to meet you at the hotel and you and Fuuka and I were talking about Shinjiro-san?"

"Of course." Minako nodded.

"Did you…notice anything weirdabout Fuuka?" asked Yukari hesitantly.

Oh, thought Minako. So, it hadn't been just her imagination. She had at the time, noticed that Fuuka seemed strangely uncomfortable about the topic of Minako and Shinjiro. Then, she'd assumed that it was just the natural awkwardness that came with talking about a recent breakup, but now…now, she started to wonder if maybe something else was going on.

"Oh," she said, nodding. "I see. So, Fuuka and Shinjiro…"

"No!" Yukari was emphatic." No, no, it's not like that. Fuuka's just…" Yukari stopped, and sighed. "I'm really not supposed to tell you about this. I mean, Fuuka's my friend, but you're…you're you. It just doesn't seem fair, keeping you in the dark. Minako, Fuuka has a thing for Shinjiro-san. She's always had a little crush on him, ever since Gekkoukan. We didn't' really know that anything was going on between the two of you, but he was always so distant, and you were the only girl he really spent any time with, so…she just never made the effort. Now that they're working together, and you've left him for somebody else, she was wondering if-!"

"I haven't," interjected Minako sharply. "I didn't, I mean…there isn't anybody else, not really. I t was just a mistake, what happened with me and that other guy. It wasn't about leaving Shinji for someone else."

Yukari didn't say anything for a moment. "So," she asked eventually, "you're…gonna try to get him back?"

Minako didn't have a good answer to that. She wondered, for a moment, if she'd even really thought about it. There had always sort of been the understanding that if she wanted Shinjiro, she would come back to him, and they'd…they'd what? Pick up where they left off? Where exactly had they left off? It didn't really work that way. Minako didn't know if that was what she'd been expecting or hoping to do.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I just want to see him. Maybe that will help."

"Okay," said Yukari. "Well, anyway, I thought you should know about it, that's all. Ugh, please don't tell her I told you. She'd be so mad…"

Minako left the house that day feeling very, very confused. The idea of Fuuka and Shinjiro together made her upset, but she wasn't sure why. It wasn't that she didn't think Fuuka had the right to be with someone like Shinjiro, and Minako had, even she had to admit, really given up her chance to make him as happy as she could.

"So, where to next?" asked Junpei, as they drove away from Yukari and Kippei, who were still standing and waving in the driveway.

Minako bit her lip. "Feel like doing some shopping?" she asked.

Junpei let out a long-suffering sigh. "Women," he muttered, "always thinking about shopping." Even as he said it, though, she felt him turn the car around to head towards Paulownia mall.


	16. Fifteen - December 23

**Author's Note: **WARNING: This one is genuinely a bit sad. I mean, not, like devastating, or anything, but it was kind of hard for me to write. Still, you know me, I can't stray too far from the script or we get the same kind of panic that we did at the end of **Bondswoman**, and we can't have that again. So, because it was in the outline, here is a difficult scene. Man, I like both of these pairings, and I don't want to have to choose! Someday, I'll have to write another story featuring this pairing instead…

Sorry to leave you on this note, tonight, but I promise that the next **Piecekeeping** update tomorrow will cheer you up!

**Fifteen – December 23**

"Wait," said Junpei, as he and Minako walked together into Paulownia mall, "Are you serious? Is this why we're here?"

Minako frowned. "What are you talking about?" she asked. "Is what why we're here?"

Junpei sighed heavily. "Right," he said, "You can't see it. We're standing in the mall, right? So, looks like Chagall's closed, and where it used to be, right in front of us, is this big sign. You wanna know what the sign says?"

Minako waited expectantly.

"It says," he told her, "'Yamagishi Catering Services, grand opening.'"

"Oh!" Minako was honestly surprised. She hadn't been aware that Fuuka and Shinjiro had their business headquarters in Paulownia mall. No one had told her, and she hadn't thought to ask. Considering that she and Yukari had only just now been talking about Fuuka and Shinjiro, this certainly did seem like an odd coincidence. She could understand why Junpei thought this was an intentional visit.

"Really," she assured him, "I just wanted to look around. You know, for old time's sake. We spent a lot of weekends here…evenings too, now that I think about it."

"Yeah," agreed Junpei. "Yeah, we sure did. Kinda weird, being back here now. Makes me feel…old."

Minako laughed. "Good," she said. "Now, if you'd only start acting like it…"

Junpei swatted her shoulder with one hand. "Whatever," he said. "I'll never lose my youthful, boyish charm. I'm the perfect combination of boy and man. Don't try to change me, Mina-tan."

Minako just raised her eyebrows. "So, I guess we're not going for a cup of coffee," she said, pointedly changing the subject. "Wanna have a try at the arcade? There is that one pinball game that you still never managed to beat me at."

She expected Junpei to jump at the chance to finally put down his long-time pinball rival, but instead, he was thoughtfully quiet for a moment. Finally, he asked her, "Aren't you gonna go see him?"

"See who?" asked Minako.

Junpei snorted. "Yeah, like you don't know. Look, you've been talking about having a chance to talk things over with Shinjiro-san since we started planning this trip. Now he's pretty much right in front of you, and you're not gonna do anything about it? Don't tell me you're chicken."

Minako bristled slightly. "It's nothing like that," she began, "it's just…" She wasn't really sure what was going on in her head. Now that she was finally here, she couldn't figure out just what exactly she wanted to tell Shinjiro, especially after that conversation with Yukari, and her new doubts about Fuuka.

"Go on," insisted Junpei, just a little more gently than he usually did. "If it gets ugly, I'll come in and save you. Then you can watch me whoop your ass at pinball."

"You'll never beat me," muttered Minako, as she listened to Junpei's footsteps moving away from her, leaving her there alone. He'd said that the catering place was right in front of her, so she hesitantly took a few steps forward until a friendly, if slightly strained female voice greeted her.

"Hello, welcome to Yamagishi Catering," said the voice. "How can we help you today?"

"Um," replied Minako, her voice coming out just a little softer and squeakier than she'd expected it to, "M-my name's Minako Arisato…I'm an old friend of Mr. Aragaki's. Is he here?"

There was a brief pause, as whomever Minako was speaking to apparently took a moment to size her up. "Mr. Aragaki," she began, "is in the middle of preparing for an event. I'd be happy to let him know that you came by, or to leave him a message if you'd like him to get in touch with you, but at the moment he's-!"

"Minako?" asked Shinjiro's voice in surprise, from somewhere beyond where the receptionist and Minako were talking. "What are you doing here?"

Good question, thought Minako. The familiar sound of his voice made heart ache for a moment. Once upon a time, that had been the first thing that she'd woken up to every morning. "I…came to see you," she managed, lamely. "Can I come in? Are you busy? I can come back later."

"Now's fine," said Shinjiro. "Here." She heard his footsteps coming towards her, and then felt his strong hand on he arm, guiding her forward. "This way."

They walked together away from the receptionist, and back into some inner room. Shinjiro closed the door behind them.

"How are you, Shinji?" asked Minako. "I would say you look great, but, um…" She tried to force a laugh, but it came out more of a hoarse sort or nervous squeak.

Shinjiro didn't say anything. She could feel his eyes on her.

"Why'd you come?" he asked eventually. There was a coldness in his voice that made Minako want to give up and run away.

"Junpei and I are on vacation," she told him. "We…we wanted to come and see our SEES friends in Iwatodai, so I…" she stopped. "You're one of my closest-!"

"Don't," interrupted Shinjiro quickly. "Don't say that shit to me. If that's all you came here to say, then…just go. I don't need to hear it."

Minako still didn't know what she really had come to say. There were so many feelings she hadn't ever had the chance to put into words, and others that hadn't even ever become fully-fledged thoughts in her own conflicted brain. One thing, though, she knew that she had to tell him, no matter what he did or didn't want to hear from her. There was something she owed Shinjiro that she couldn't live with herself if she didn't give him now, while she had the opportunity.

"Shinji, I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so, so sorry. I didn't treat you the way I wanted to treat you. I wasn't the person either of us wanted me to be. You deserved better. You still do."

"Yeah, well…I don't know who I wanted you to be," muttered Shinjiro. "Just somebody I didn't have to lose this time, I guess. Didn't end up working out like that."

Minako wanted to respond to that, but something about the way he'd phrased it made her pause and think. What had he said? He'd wanted someone he didn't have to lose? Yes, she thought, that actually made sense, now that she was turning it around in her mind. That had been exactly the reason why she'd struggled so much with Shinjiro, with his overprotective nature and his need to keep her as close to him as he could. He wasn't just looking for a girlfriend, or even someone to love. He wanted the girl he'd lost the first time, only this time, he didn't want to lose her. That was the main thing he thought about when he looked at her. The first time, she'd gotten away. He couldn't get past the idea that she might get away again. He couldn't move on from that to create something that they could really share, together.

"We have to move on from what happened at Gekkoukan," she tried. "We can't dwell on that and fixate on that for the rest of our lives."

Shinjiro snorted. "That's not so easy," he said. "It was my life. It was the worst part of my life. It was never a part of yours, Minako. You were…you were already gone, by the time we started to miss you. You wouldn't get it."

Shocked, Minako just opened her mouth in silence for a moment. "I…I wouldn't get it? I wouldn't…Shinji, I was the one that died! How could I not-?"

"Yeah," agreed Shinjiro. "That's right. You weren't the one who had to live through it."

Minako took a long, deep breath. Those sounded so much like the same words she'd said to him, about his own time in the hospital, not long after she'd awoken from the Seal. It was like listening to an echo of her own thoughts, thoughts that she'd already worked so hard to overcome.

Just being here with Shinjiro, whom even now she knew she cared for more than almost any other man in the world, made the magical events of the day before feel as though they'd never happened. All of the comfort and peace she'd felt when she'd finally stood up there, on that roof, with so many of her SEES friends…it all melted away, and left her right back at the beginning, still grieving over the loss of someone she might have become.

"I can't do this forever," she told him, almost pleading.

"I can't do anything else," he retorted. "I told you, there's never gonna be anyone else for me. There can't be. Everything that happened to you, that's all a part of me now. It's most of me."

"I…" began Minako, but she was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. Fuuka's voice broke through the tension that was now so thick Minako was sure she could reach out and touch it.

"Shinjiro-san?" called Fuuka. "Do you have those menus? I can't find them anywhere…oh! Minako-chan!"

For the first time, Minako thought, really thought about Fuuka and Shinjiro. She didn't like it, that was for sure. Even now, Shinjiro was her man, the man she'd spent so long intending to spend the rest of her happy, successful, unburdened life with. She'd wanted to live in that house with him and turn their lives into something that Gekkoukan and the Great Seal could never taint or color with the kind of misery and madness that it had tried so hard to impose upon her life. She had the right to that kind of life, but…in the end, so did he. He'd never be able to have it with her, but with Fuuka…maybe there was still a chance, for him at least. Fuuka hadn't been the Great Seal. Fuuka hadn't tormented him for years. Maybe she might really be able to make him happy.

"I don't believe that," she told him. "I don't believe that you can't do anything else. There's…there's other things out there, for you. I love you, Shinji, I…I don't want you to be like this. You have to try, for us. Or…not for us. For you."

"Not for us," echoed Shinjiro quietly. "I want it for us."

Minako wanted it too, more than she'd even known she wanted it until this moment. It was so easy to forget how important something was, she realized, until it finally slipped away from her. There wasn't going to be any happy ending with Shinjiro. If he was going to get any kind of happy ending at all, she'd have to let go of him first.

"Goodbye, Shinji," she started to say. "I…I hope I see you again someday. I hope that's something you want, too."

"Yeah," mumbled Shinjiro hoarsely. "Yeah…I want it already. Do you remember what I said to you, up on the rooftop that day?" He paused, then added, "Course not…you were barely even awake, then. Told you I was glad I met you. I was. That's still true. You changed my life."

Minako wondered if she'd managed to change it for the better, or for the worse. Turning on her heel, she ignored the tears that were beginning to build up in her eyes. She didn't care. It was okay if he saw her cry. It wouldn't be the first time, even if it was the last.

"Wait," said Shinjiro, and Minako felt herself stop in her tracks. "There's something I need to know," he said. "That guy, that…that guy you were kissing. Tell me he didn't mean anything to you. Tell me it was just a mistake. I want to hear it again."

Six months ago, Minako knew, she would have promised him that yes, he was right, Tohru wasn't anything to her except for a terrible, shadow-induced mistake. Even as she opened her mouth to say it, however, a little ripple of Tohru's laughter floated across Mianko's mind. It was his sincere, teasing, nervous laugh, the one that made him feel human to her, rather than the vicious, hysterical laughter that she'd heard after the incident at the train station. Whomever he was deep down in there somewhere, it meant something to her now, even if she wasn't sure exactly what that was.

"I wish I could," she told Shinjiro, and she meant every word of it as she walked back out of the store and into the mall.


	17. Sixteen - December 23

**Author's Note: **My only thoughts after completing my fourth or fifth re-write of this chapter…

I am a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad writer. Argh! Grumpy, disappointed in this chapter.

They had to do surgery to save my foot. I am going to detach my shiny new surgical boot and curl up in the corner and feel sorry for myself…

**Sixteen – December 23**

Junpei was already there and waiting for her when Minako walked out of Yamagishi catering. She knew that he could see the tears running down her face.

He didn't run to her, or put his arm around her, or beg her to tell him what had happened and why she was so upset. They'd both known that this was the likely result as soon as she walked into that store.

"Okay," said Junpei. "I think its pinball time."

Minako started to laugh, but it came out as more of a half-sob. "No," she said, shaking her head. "No, not right now. I…I have to finish something. I have to do it now, while I'm ready, before I change my mind. I have to see him."

"See him?" Junpei sounded confused. "Didn't you just…what were you doing in there?"

"No," muttered Minako, "Not Shinji. I have to see-!" She paused, frowning. "Junpei, can you get me into the TV world?"

"Now?" Junpei asked her, sounding a little worried, despite himself. "What, right now? Mina-tan, you're um…you're crying. You wanna go in there while you're sniveling like that? This is not a good idea. Let's go have some fun, relax, get ourselves something to eat…maybe when you're feeling a little better, then we can-!"

"No!" Minako realized that her voice was now coming louder and more forcefully than she'd intended. "Junpei, it has to be now. I won't be able to make myself do it again later, when I'm feeling better. Please. Please help me."

Junpei sighed. "You're some kinda crazy masochist, you know that?" he asked. "I don't know what this is all about, but I'm telling you right now that I don't like it."

"So…" murmured Minako, disappointed, "then, you won't help me."

"What the hell gave you that idea?" he grumbled. "Come on. Let's go. We gotta find a damn TV…pretty sure the arcade has one. Are you sure you don't wanna play pinball instead? Maybe I'll even let you win this time…"

He took her by the arm and guided her over to the arcade. "Yeah, I was right," he said. "Here we go. All right, hold on tight, we're going in."

Minako felt the dizzy fuzziness as Junpei pulled her through the monitor and into the TV World. Then she could feel the ground beneath her again, as well as Junpei's hand still clutching hers. Together, they turned towards the one constant in the TV world – the entrance to the Velvet Room.

"Can you go into the Velvet Room?" she asked him. "I need you to bring To-I mean, Adachi out here to me. I need to speak to him."

Junpei made a disgruntled noise. Minako could imagine the irritated look on his face. "Why?" he asked. "Why now? What did Shinjiro-san say to you that makes you wanna go and have a chat with some murderer you used to make out with? You're not getting that desperate, are you? Look, there are other guys in the world, okay? Shinjiro-san isn't, like, the last one you'll ever meet."

"Junpei, please!" Minako begged him.

"Fine," growled Junpei. He muttered something under his breath as Minako heard him open the door and disappear into the Velvet Room. It sounded something like "Can't believe I'm even doing this right now…ugh, women."

A series of what seemed like very long moments passed by before Minako heard Junpei return.

"He's not in there," he told her. "Can we go now? Even Igor doesn't know where he is. I guess he wanders off a lot…some assistant, huh?"

Minako, unsure whether she should be disappointed or relieved, was about to grudgingly agree that her only option was to leave and come back later, when she heard what sounded like a gunshot from somewhere a ways behind her.

"Huh?" asked Junpei. "What was that?"

Minako just nodded. "I know where he is," she said. "I'm going. Wait here for me."

Junpei suddenly took a hold on Minako's arm again. "No way, not a chance," he told her. "You are not going out there by yourself. That's crazy. You're crazy, and we're leaving."

Minako turned her fiercest, most determined, defiant expression in what she hoped was Junpei's direction. "I," she informed him carefully, "am going by myself. You cannot try to stop me. I have things I need to do. I will see you later."

Before he had a chance to argue with her, Minako hurried off in the direction where the gunshot had come from.

She wasn't sure exactly where she was going, as she'd never had much chance to get to know or learn to navigate the TV World, even when she'd had her eyesight. Still, a continued barrage of what sounded like discharged bullets gave her a reasonable idea that she was going in the right direction. The farther she went, the closer the sounds became, until the whole atmosphere around her changed, and she found herself in an environment that was eerily, disturbingly quiet, except for the occasional blast of bullets. There was something creepy about this place, something unwelcoming. It sent a little chill down her spine, just being there.

"Tohru?" she called. "Tohru, where are you?"

Abruptly, the shots stopped firing. There was another moment of long, alarming silence. Then Minako heard those familiar, lazy footsteps coming closer to her.

"What the hell are you doing here?" asked Tohru. There was a sneer in his voice, and the face she pictured in her mind when she thought of him wasn't the one she wanted to see. "Get out. This place isn't for you. How'd you get here by yourself, anyway? You could have gotten killed."

There was something that felt almost insincere about the way he said that. Maybe, she thought, he would have liked to see her get killed. Maybe that would have amused him. Minako tried not to let that thought upset her. "I can see you've got a new gun," she said instead.

"Yeah," agreed Tohru. "I like guns. Like I said, that's the only reason I even joined the police. I wanted them to let me shoot a gun. It looks good on me, doesn't it? Oh, but I guess you wouldn't know. Oh well. Trust me, it's a good look." Again, he fired. Minako heard the bullet bounce off of the wall and clatter to the ground. What, she wondered, was this place, anyway?

"Tohru," she said. "I wanted to tell you-!"

"How's your boyfriend?" asked Tohru conversationally, interrupting her as though he hadn't even heard what she'd said. "You guys having fun in Iwatodai? Making up for lost time? You're good at that, aren't you? I'm kinda of impressed. You're a fast mover."

Minako took a deep breath. She was not going to let him bait her this time. How, she wondered, did he even know about Shinjiro? Not that it mattered. It was none of his business what had happened between her and Shinjiro. This wasn't about that relationship, this was about-

"Anyway," he said, "you're just in time for the big show."

"I don't understand what that means," she told him.

"Don't you?" he asked her, almost jeeringly. "Well, then I'll explain it to you. You were kind enough to prove my point. You showed me everything I need to see. I wasn't wrong about this world. We're all trying so hard and looking like fools, for what? For nothing. There's nothing worth having, and there's no point in wanting it. I'm sick of it. It makes me sick just thinking about what you tried to turn me into. And here I thought I knew better by now, but…anyway, it's been fun, but the party's over. This time, you're not gonna have to clean the fingerprints off of the gun, either. Nobody's gonna care what happened here. Nobody's even gonna know."

"Tohru," Minako began.

"So long, Minako," he muttered.

Maybe it was the use of her name, or maybe it was something just a little bit shaky about his voice when he said it, but Minako suddenly had the feeling that something was very, very wrong. Without thinking, she lunged forward and grabbed for him, misjudging the distance and stumbling against him. Reaching up, she held on to his arm to support herself, and then traced her fingers along the arm up to the shoulder, where she could feel the cold metal of the gun settled far too close to where his head should have been.

"What…" began Minako. "What are you talking about?"

"Quit touching me," he snarled.

"No." Minako could feel her pulse getting faster as she put two and two together. "You're…you've got a gun to your head! That's-!"

"It's what?" he asked her, and this time there was no tremor in his voice at all. He sounded so bitter and intense that she didn't know what to say. "It's the next step. What were you expecting? I've finally figured it out. There's no point in sticking around to see what happens next to you dumbasses. I don't even care enough to waste the effort. Now we both get what we want. I don't have to get bored out of my mind watching you make the same mistakes, over and over, and you don't have to see my face anymore. Hey, I thought you'd like this solution. After all, I am the bad guy. There's no place for me in this crappy fairytale. This is actually kinda poetic. It's almost poetic justice. " He almost spat out the last word; there was so much venom in it.

"You're not the bad guy," murmured Minako. "You saved my life."

"Oh, so, you do remember that," remarked Tohru. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter. Like I told you, what really happened never does matter. It's the way people want to see it. And what people want to see…what you want to see is a monster. I told you I'd do anything you wanted me to, didn't I? So for you, I'll be that monster." Pausing for a minute, he added, almost casually, "You know, if I'm gonna do this the right way, I need a great closing line…damn, I should have thought about that before. What do you think, blind girl? What'd be some good last words? Or maybe you could just pretend I said them, make them up for me. Yeah, that'd work. After all, you're pretty good at making stuff up, and lying to people, aren't you?"

"Stop it," whispered Minako.

Tohru laughed. "What?" he asked. "Are you gonna cry, now? Go on, cry. Show me how good you are at pretending I mean something to you. I want to see you do it. Cry for me."

Minako didn't cry. Instead, she hauled back and struck him as hard as she could across the face. She heard his grunt of surprise and pain, and felt him stumble. Something, probably the gun, clattered to the ground by Minako's feet.

"Jeez," he muttered, and Minako could hear the wince in his voice."You really are full of surprises."

"How dare you," spat Minako, the rage starting to build uncontrollably inside her. "How dare you? I had to die because of you, because of people like you…people who can't see the value of life, who don't want to bother trying to make something out of it. Nyx never would have happened if it hadn't been for people like you. I could have had the life I wanted, I could have..." She thought about Shinjiro, Akihiko, Junpei, and everyone else who had been deeply damaged by the events of the sealing of Nyx. Yu and Yosuke, too, wouldn't have been where they were today if it weren't for the sort of people who had created Nyx in the first place.

The gun was still on the ground, and Minako bent down and fished around until she found it.

"Huh," said Tohru. "So you want to do it yourself? I guess that makes sense. That might even work out better. Okay, go ahead. You shoot me. Finish what you started."

"Get up," said Minako.

"Why?" asked Tohru. "You can shoot me just as well from up there."

Minako took a deep breath. "Get up," she told him again.

As she listened to the sounds of Tohru getting slowly to his feet, Minako's mind was frantically trying to get a hold of itself. She was still so angry that it was making her face burn. Part of her wanted to shoot him, just to release some of that anger for a moment. She wanted him to feel some of the pain that she had felt, that she was still feeling.

The rational part of her, though, the part that had already dried up her tears, was telling her that anger wasn't enough. It wasn't going to solve anything. If she was really going to prove her point to Tohru, there were other ways she'd have to do it. Maybe now was the time to test Yu's theory about the things that Tohru really did care about.

Slowly, trying to keep looking confident and defiant as she did it, Minako raised the gun, and held it to her own head. It's just like an evoker, she told herself, although her brain was now screaming at her to throw this thing away and stop acting like an idiot. She'd done this a hundred times with her evoker back in the day. This was nothing, as long as she remembered not to pull the trigger.

"Okay," she said aloud, and was pleased with how relaxed she managed to sound. "Maybe you're right. Maybe there isn't anything worth living for. If that's the case, then why should I bother?"

Suddenly, Tohru went very, very still. Minako could hear his breathing change as he watched her with the gun against her temple.

"Don't be stupid," he muttered. "Put that down."

"It's not stupid," she told him. "You said that you like shooting guns. Why, because of the rush you get? Maybe I'd like to shoot one, too. It's been a long time since I lost my evoker. This looks like it might be fun."

"Knock it off," he said, a little louder this time. "Quit playing with that thing, you might-!"

"Why?" asked Minako . Trying not to show that she was holding her breath, she pushed the gun a little harder into the side of her head. "You play with it all the time. Why can't I?"

"What are you trying to pull?" shouted Tohru frantically. "This isn't a game, put it down!"

He made a grab for the weapon, and Minako, honestly afraid of getting hurt, immediately let it fall out of her hand. For the second time, it ended up on the floor between them, and neither of them made a move to retrieve it.

"No," agreed Minako quietly. "It isn't."

Several moments of incredibly tense silence passed between them. Then, Tohru started to laugh. It was a low, almost incredulous laugh, under his breath.

"You got me," he told her. "Wow, you got me again."

Minako, who was begging her knees not to start shaking, sank gratefully down on to the floor.

"And you were scared," murmured Tohru, surprised. "What the…I don't get it. Why would you do something like that? What's the point?"

Minako shrugged. "This time, I wanted to show you something," she said.

"Show me what?" asked Tohru. "That you're a big girl who can mess around with weapons, too?"

"No." She shook her head. "I wanted to show you what it feels like to know you might lose someone you care about. I figured if you were going to do that to me, you should know how scary it is. Now you do."

"Heh, so you think I care what happens to you?" Tohru tried, but she could tell his heart wasn't in it anymore. "You're pretty impressed with yourself."

Forcing herself back on to her feet, Minako was glad to feel that her knees were done wobbling, and that she had a firm footing gain. Junpei, she knew, would be waiting for her, probably somewhere not very far away. He'd be angry about her running off like that, and he'd probably have spent all this time looking for her. She was in for it, and that was comforting. At least she could rely on Junpei to react in a normal, reasonable way.

"Why'd you come here, anyway?" muttered Tohru. "You said you wanted to tell me something. What?"

"It doesn't matter anymore," she said.

As she started to leave, she suddenly felt Tohru grab her by the wrist. "Tell me," he insisted.

Minako smiled a strangely triumphant little smile. "If you want to know," she told him, "You'll have to still be here when I get back."

She listened the sound of her own footsteps echoing in the eerie silence. One, two, three, four…

"When are you going to come back?" he asked.

That time, Minako didn't answer.


	18. Seventeen - December 23 and 24

**Author's Note: **Okay, no, really, this is the most exciting thing EVER. Please, if you have a moment, check out **Yuruya-sama** on Deviantart. She was kind enough to do some wonderful drawings based on events from **Bondswoman** and **Messiah**, and she's so talented. Honestly, this is pretty much the coolest thing that has ever happened. Please go look. Please, and tell her how wonderful she is, because it's true.

…I will now take a deep, calming breath, and we can return to our regularly scheduled angstfest.

The next chapter will be Christmas!

If you want to read about the joint SEES and Investigation Team Christmas party, you'll want to check out the next chapter of **Piecekeeping!**

To read about a special Christmas visit that Minako makes to a certain Velvet Room assistant, you'll want the next chapter of **Messiah. **

Of course, I think that you should read both, but that, my friends, is entirely up to your discretion!

**Seventeen – December 23/24**

Maybe only moments after Minako had turned away from Tohru and had begun heading back towards the entrance, she heard someone's footsteps come to a stop in front of her.

"Hey," muttered Junpei.

"Junpei?" Minako bit her lip. "You…you were right out here the whole time?"

"Course I was," Junpei informed her. "What did you think I was gonna do, just watch you run off like that and do nothing? What kind of a wingman would that make me?"

The use of the word 'wingman" in such an unexpectedly serious context made Minako a bit uncomfortable. "So, then, you heard everything," she said. "Why didn't you-?"

"I knew you weren't gonna do it, obviously," he interrupted. "That's just not you. My Mina-tan loves living. She fights for life. Damn, it's barely even been a year since you came back. You wouldn't do something like that to me."

Minako noticed the sudden change in the direction of Junpei's conversation. First, he'd told her she wasn't going to do it because she wanted to live, but he'd ended up saying that she 'couldn't do something like that to him.' He'd been a lot more worried than he was willing to let on, she realized.

"Thank you for trusting me," she said.

Junpei didn't say anything for a moment. "Let's just go," he mumbled finally.

He took her by the arm, a little more roughly than he usually did when helping her get from point A to point B, and they walked back through the TV world, towards the Velvet Room door and the passage out of the TV.

"I don't get it," he muttered, as they walked. "Why do you always have to save everybody?"

"What?" asked Minako.

"I mean, it's like you've got this mission, or something," continued Junpei. "You just can't leave people alone. Even this Adachi guy. How the hell is he even worth your time? He's a killer. He's evil, man, he's not gonna just get better because you bat your eyelashes at him like you do at everybody else. But you just can't leave it alone, can you? You've gotta be the one that shows everybody the light."

Junpei had never said anything like this before. Minako was surprised, and genuinely hurt to hear the way he seemed to think she looked at the world.

"It's not about me," she began. "I just thought that he, like everybody else, needs someone to see him for who he really is."

"Who he really is?" echoed Junpei. "He's really a creep. All you ever talk about is happy endings. You want me to be happy, you want Shinjiro-san to be happy, you want this piece of shit to be happy…what about you, huh? What do you get out of all of this? When do you get yours?"

Minako was sure that she was a great deal more selfish than Junpei was giving her credit for. After all, when she'd first come back from the Seal, all she'd thought about was how she could find a way to her own happy ending. She'd almost sacrificed Yu's life just to get it, and that knowledge would haunt her for the rest of her life, even if things had worked out for what she still considered the best on all counts. In the end, though, it seemed that if everyone else was going to be happy, she couldn't be. They needed her to bear some of the burdens so that they could make it through the day. She'd died so that he friends could live, and the more she thought about that, the more she never wanted the chance to take that back. She'd lost a part of herself to bring Yu back from the Seal, and he was now a dear and trusted friend that she wouldn't dare risk losing. That was the fate that she'd accepted, and she was ready, finally, to live up to it, if that's what it took to keep the people she loved in the places that they so desperately wanted to be.

"Maybe I just realized what I should have known all along," she said quietly. "I can't have both. It's more important that I give you and all of our friends a chance to be happy. That's…that's what I really want."

She could tell that Junpei was scowling, even if she couldn't see his face. She could hear it in his voice when he next spoke. "What about what we want?" he asked. 'Did you ever think about that?"

"Of course," she said. "Didn't you hear what I just said? I've been trying to give you-!"

"We want you to move on, too," he told her. "We want you to have a chance. I want it. It's not fun watching you keep throwing yourself into other people's problems, especially people who don't fucking deserve the attention. Give it a rest already. You've paid your dues. Just…just live. For once, just…just let yourself live."

Minako wasn't sure she could. Junpei was looking at this all wrong.

"You and I are the same kind of person," she murmured eventually. "Neither of us can sit back and watch someone being in pain without wanting to do or say something about it."

"Tch," muttered Junpei. "Yeah, well, in his case, I could watch."

They stepped back out of the TV into the slightly noisier, busier world of Paulownia Mall.

"I'm sorry that I made you angry," said Minako, for lack of anything else to fill the laden silence. "I really did need your help. You did me a big favor today."

"I'm not mad," insisted Junpei. "Its' not like that. Let's just…let's just go back to the hotel."

**The next morning, at the hotel…**

The entirety of SEES, with the notable exception of Shinjiro, was back at the hotel, sitting around in the restaurant and enjoying a delicious complimentary buffet.

"Oh no," muttered Yukari sadly. "I ate way too much…I'm gonna have to go running or something after this. Where's Chie when you need her?"

"You're fine," insisted Minako. "An extra donut just this one time isn't going to hurt you."

"Dude," insisted Junpei, "Yuka-tan's right. She's getting older. We're not all seventeen like you. Her metabolism's gonna give out, and then she's gonna start getting bigger, and bigger…"

"Why would you say something like that, Stupei?" shrieked Yukari. "It's not that bad! I can still fit into my high school uniform!"

"…Wait, did you actually try to do that?" asked Junpei. "Women are so weird…"

Minako stifled a giggle into her orange juice.

Someone moved a chair out next to her. "Hey, Minako," murmured Akihiko, a little lower than usual. "Listen, um…okay, I know it's not really my business, but have you seen Shinji?"

"Yes." Minako nodded. "I went to the catering place to visit him yesterday. We…we talked about things. I needed to apologize. I think…I think he understands."

"Yeah. Okay." Akihiko sounded a little bit relieved. "I'm glad. He was pretty messed up about it."

Minako was sure that Akihiko hadn't been looking forward to this particular conversation. Still, even if they had once been rivals for her attention, Akihiko and Shinjiro were very important to one another. Of course, Akihiko would have had something to say about the way she'd treated Shinjiro. Maybe now that things were all over between them, Akihiko and Shinjiro could go back to the way they'd been before. Maybe their relationship would heal, now that Minako's had been broken off.

She wanted to feel good about that, but she didn't. Still, at least she'd done some good, even if she'd managed to do a lot of harm in the process.

Luckily for her, Aigis chose that wonderfully opportune moment to break into the conversation. "It is my understanding," said Aigis, "that we are all expected to travel to the town of Inaba this afternoon. Is this correct?"

"Mmph, yeah," mumbled Junpei around a bite of breakfast. "Right, we're all gonna go and have Christmas with the other guys. Rise told me she's setting up the place for us right now! That's nice, huh? It'll be all ready for a party by the time we get there."

"I see." Aigis sounded uncertain. "I confess that I have…concerns about my reception. It seems reasonable to assume that your friends are unlikely to welcome me back into their lives, as I am the one who threatened the life of their leader only a year ago."

A murmur of conversation around the table implied to Minako that other people were worried about the same thing. Clearing her throat, she raised her voice slightly above the dull roar.

"You're one of us, Aigis," she insisted. "Yosuke and Yu will understand. They would probably have done the same thing, in your situation."

"Few people," remarked Aigis, "would have been capable of performing the same feats."

Yukari sighed. "That's not exactly what Minako meant, Aigis…she's just saying that they'll forgive you, because they'll know you felt."

Minako smiled to herself. Aigis' newfound humanity made Minako unexpectedly think of Naoto. They weren't similar, were they? Well, not exactly, she decided, but they both did tend to take things in an almost irrationally literal way.

Koromaru started to whine. Surprised, Minako turned her head in his direction.

"Aw, Koro-chan," crooned Fuuka. "Don't worry, we're not leaving you behind. You're coming with us, of course."

"Yeah," agreed Junpei, "I bet Nanako's gonna love you! Still, uh…dunno where you'll stay. I mean, I don't really have any dog stuff in the house…"'

"Akihiko-san and I have Koro's toys in the car," remarked Ken. "We can bring them with us."

Conversation continued, but Minako was beginning to realize that she wasn't hungry anymore. All this talk of taking her friends back to Inaba was beginning to bother her, and at first, she wasn't entirely certain as to why. She really had meant it when she'd told Aigis that Yosuke and Yu would be able to get over what happened. All right, she admitted to herself, Yosuke would have a harder time with it than Yu would, but as long as Aigis and Yosuke weren't left alone together, things would go as smoothly as possible under the circumstances. After all, both she and Yu would be ready to do damage control. He was very good, in fact, at damage control.

No, what was bothering here wasn't Aigis, or even the idea of her two groups of friends seeing each other again. After all, they'd really had a very nice time at Christmas together, the year before. That had essentially been the first experience that they'd all had together which didn't involve combat or life and death situations.

"Um," inquired Fuuka, in an even smaller voice than she usually used. "Do you think we should invite Shinjiro-san? It doesn't seem fair to have Christmas without him, after all…"

Minako felt a lump in her throat. "You can ask him," she said. "But…I don't think he'll come." We should leave him alone, she thought. Let him get out of all of this. Let him walk away from all of the things that have been haunting him.

That, she finally understood, was what was frustrating her. She didn't want to drag any of them back into the mess of the Velvet Room shadows. After all, even if Junpei did try to dance around the question, that was the reason that he'd invited them all to come in the first place, wasn't it? Yosuke, or maybe Yu, or someone had insisted that they needed some extra help in solving the Velvet Room mystery, and Junpei had probably volunteered to go and get the former SEES members as an effective backup corp. It made sense, even she had to admit that. Still, after their moment together on the roof the other day, she wanted to leave them here, where they were safe, and happy.

"Hey, Mina-tan," asked Junpei. "Are you gonna finish that pastry?"

Minako was about to offer it to him, when the table shook, and she heard a slurping noise, followed by a triumphant bark.

"What? Seriously?" asked an outraged Junpei. "Dude, Koro-chan, I asked for it first!"


	19. Eighteen - Christmas Eve

**Author's Note: **Just another reminder – if you want to see what happened/is happening at the Christmas party itself, check out **Piecekeeping**! I'm posting the updates for both stories at the exact same time, to try and improve the continuity of your reading experience!

And now, more Minako x Adachi. Angsty, yes, but at least we've finally reached a turning point, and this time there are no guns involved, so we are definitely making progress.

**Eighteen – Christmas Eve**

Junpei and Minako, with the entire SEES team in pursuit, spent most of that afternoon and evening driving back into Inaba. By the time they got there, it was already almost ten o'clock at night, according to Junpei. They all parked on the street outside of Junpei's house, and piled inside to a chorus of their excited and enthusiastic friends calling "Welcome back!" and "We missed you!"

Minako spent a short time at the party, talking to various friends and catching up on the things that had happened while she and Junpei were gone. Apparently there had been some pretty significant developments having to do with the investigation team and their mission in the Velvet Room. Yosuke took care to fill Minako in fully on the details.

"Hey, Junpei?" she asked, as she watched Nanako and Chie retreating to the kitchen with a plate of Nanako's homemade cookies. "What time is it?"

"Uh…" Junpei paused, apparently having to check his watch. "Oh, it's eleven thirty. Almost midnight, so…I guess that means it's almost Christmas!"

Looking around, Minako saw that her friends were all wearing smiles, and enjoying each other's company. Even Aigis, whom she'd been genuinely worried about, was now engaged in conversation with Yu, something that made Minako want to give the former team leader a big, grateful hug. Koromaru was, as usual, the center of attention, getting petted and cooed to by all of the girls at the same time. Only Teddie, Minako realized, didn't look very happy. Maybe, she thought, he just wasn't a dog person? Come tot hink of it, she didn't really know Teddie very well. He seemed like a difficult person to really get to know. She'd tried, of course, but every time she spent any time with him, he just ended up making a pass at her.

"Excuse me a moment," she told Yosuke, who was standing beside her near the Christmas tree. "I'm going to step out for a little fresh air. I won't' be gone long. Save some cookies for when I get back."

Then, sure that Christmas was going to be a success, she went as carefully and unobtrusively as she could out the front door.

As she walked down the street, she heard a set of familiar footsteps coming up behind her. "Junpei," she said. "You should be inside with the others. It was a long drive for you, I'm sure you could use a chance to relax."

"What's up?" asked Junpei. "What'd you leave for?" After a moment's silence, he added, "You're going to see him, aren't you?"

Minako winced slightly at the note of disappointment in Junpei's voice, but she held her ground. "It's Christmas Eve," she reminded him. "No one should have to be alone on a holiday night like this. Besides, you heard me tell him that I'd be back, didn't you?"

"I kinda hoped you were lying," muttered Junpei.

Minako turned away from him. "You don't have to like it," she said. "It won't change my mind. He needs me. I can help him, I know I can."

Junpei sighed. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I've heard that before." Unexpectedly, he walked forward a few paces and took her by the arm. "Come on," he said, giving her a long-suffering sigh. "I'll put you in the damn TV."

It wasn't a very long walk to Minako's house, where she kept a TV in the living room. Once they were inside, Junpei stopped and turned her gently around to face him.

"If you're not back out here in an hour," he told her seriously, "I'm going in after you, and I'm bringing the whole damn SEES team in with me. Maybe I'll even bring Yosuke, too. That'll put a stop to this crap."

"Thank you, Junpei," murmured Minako.

Junpei shook his head. "Can't decide if I'm a great wingman, or a terrible friend," he mumbled to himself. "Maybe both." Then, with more force than usual, probably due to his various uncomfortable feelings, he pushed Minako into the TV, and she landed with a fuzzy bump on the other side.

Almost instantly, she knew she wasn't alone. Even as she hit the ground, she stretched out her arm to catch herself, and felt another human body alongside her. Whoever it was twitched in surprise and pulled away from her searching fingers.

"Wha-?" exclaimed Tohru. "Jeez, you almost landed right on top of me."

"And you," retorted Minako, "probably would have liked that."

"Tch," said Tohru. "Maybe if you lost a little weight, first."

Minako, now long used to his habit of insulting everyone when he got nervous or uncomfortable, ignored that last remark. "You were waiting for me," she accused him.

"Again with the ego thing," he said. "Why would I be waiting for you?"

"Why else," insisted Minako, "would you be standing outside the entrance to my TV? Don't forget, you've been here before. I know that you know how to find it."

Maybe it was the reference to the last time he'd been inside her living room that did it, but that seemed to shut Tohru up for a minute. After a moment's hesitation, he said, more quietly, "You said you were coming back. I didn't know if you meant it. Figured I'd see if I could get through to your place. Didn't work. I really am stuck in this dump."

Minako sighed. "How romantic," she said sarcastically. "Breaking into a girl's house. How many times do I have to tell you to stop being so creepy? What if you had gotten in, and I'd brought someone else home with me? What then?"

Tohru snorted derisively. "What," he asked, "you mean, like your boyfriend? I told you before, I can take him. I've got experience on my side…he's still just some stupid kid."

Minako bit her lip. "I don't have a boyfriend," she informed Tohru, trying to keep a handle on her patience. It was getting harder and harder for her to remember why she'd come looking for Tohru tonight in the first place. "I was talking about someone like Yosuke, or maybe-!"

"Wow," sneered Tohru. "You're sleeping with him, too?"

It was no use, she thought, Turning around, she started back towards the TV. There was no talking to him. Even as she took a step forward, however, his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her back around towards him.

"Let me go," she said. "I can't deal with you being like this tonight."

"Why are you here?" he asked her. "What'd you come here for, anyway?"

Minako took a deep breath. "I wanted," she informed him, "to wish you a merry Christmas."

Surprised, he released her, and she leaned in to give him a very careful, very chaste little kiss on the cheek. "So…merry Christmas, then," she said, unsure of what else there really was to say.

Tohru was very silent and still for a minute.

Finally, he told her, "Quit toying with me. Don't come to me and do something like that, and then turn around and go back to him. If you think you're doing me any favors that way, you're wrong as hell. I don't want to be your charity project."

"What do you want me to do, then?" she asked him, exasperated.

"Isn't it obvious?" asked Tohru.

Again, thought Minako, all they had for each other was questions, just more and more endless questions. She was getting tired of the constant uncertainty, and obviously so was he. "I don't even know who you really are," she told him. "I wish I could understand. I've seen so many different pieces of you, and I can't put them together in my head. It scares me. I want to…I want to fit the pieces together. Can't you help me with that? Try to help me understand you."

"You've already seen it," muttered Tohru. "I know you saw me, that night at the train station. You know what I really am. Don't ask me to watch you hate me again."

"I don't hate you," Minako assured him. "I don't…I just don't know what to think anymore. Please, Tohru."

"Jeez…" he sighed. "What the hell, I guess I can't make it any worse. Maybe. Come on." Taking her again by the wrist, he began leading her forward, a little too quickly, so that Minako stumbled and had to catch herself against him.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

Tohru laughed mirthlessly. "You'll see," he said. "Or I guess, maybe you'll hear. Funny thing about you, blind girl, is that somehow, you're a perfect match for this place. There's nothing to see there, but there's plenty to hear. I guess hell is equal opportunity for blind people, too."

"Hell?" asked Minako, feeling a little shiver go down her spine.

"My hell," muttered Tohru. "I made this place. Maybe, without knowing it, I made it for you. Pretty weird, huh?"

The farther they went, the more uncomfortable Minako was becoming. What was Tohru talking about? What was this "hell" and what did it have to do with her? Still, she didn't say anything, or try to pull away from him. She'd asked him to help her understand, and maybe, somehow, this was his way of doing it.

The farther along they went, the more Minako realized that she could hear something. It sounded at first like the murmur of voices, far enough away that she couldn't make out exactly what they were saying. Finally, Tohru stopped, and Minako was forced to stop along with him, to avoid falling into him when he pulled her up short.

"This is where I live, now," he said, and there was a faraway, wistful sort of derision in his voice. "I guess it's kinda always where I've lived."

Behind Minako, a young girl screamed. Minako whirled around, listening intently to the girl's voice hissing in panicky disgust, "No, no…leave me alone! Get away from me, you pervert!"

"Who are you?" called Minako desperately. "Where are you?"

"Oh, she's not really here," laughed Tohru. "She's all in my head. Listen."

Now, Minako could hear another woman's voice, a slightly older woman, maybe Tohru's age. This voice was also laced with disdain, so much so that Minako shivered.

"Take your hands off me," insisted the woman. "I'll scream…I warn you, I'll scream!"

"What's happening to these women?" begged Minako.

"I'm attacking them," said Tohru, with a hint of that same manic tone in the midst of his calm delivery. "Couldn't you guess? These are the women I killed."

"The women you…" Minako trailed off, distracted from her horror by another voice. This time, surprisingly, the voice was her own.

"Tohru?" said Minako's voice in her own ears. There was surprise and terror in that voice, and with a sinking feeling in her stomach, Minako recognized the moment she'd fled from him at the train station. She listened to the sound of her own footsteps echoing away into the night.

"Oh, look, there's one you'll recognize" continued Tohru conversationally. Minako couldn't find anything to say. She just stood there, with her mouth slightly open, closing her eyes as though somehow, irrationally, that might have an effect on blocking out the terrifying onslaught of voices.

"Goddamnit Adachi," said Dojima's voice. "Can't you get anything right the first time? Why do I always have to follow you around and clean up your mess?"

Then came other voices, ones that Minako didn't recognize. They were coming on faster and faster, beginning to overlap on each other in their eagerness to make themselves heard.

"…a shame that your career had to end this way," said an older, male voice. "You could have had a promising future on the force, but after a slip-up like this, I can hardly suggest you for promotion…maybe this wasn't a good track for you, after all."

"Please," said what sounded like a younger version of Tohru, "Sir, just let me explain…"

"I'm afraid that won't be necessary," said the male voice. "It is far past the time for explanations, Adachi…"

Minako tried to find Tohru again. He'd let go of her, and she had to flail around behind her for a moment until she connected with his arm.

"What was that?" she asked.

"My boss in the city," Tohru informed her. "Guess he wasn't too happy with me back then…"

Minako kept listening.

Now came the sound of a child crying, and then a harsh, much older woman's voice snapping, "Tohru, no more of this nonsense. Your father would be ashamed to see you crying like this. It's…it's embarrassing."

"I know," said a quiet, little boy's voice. Could that, Minako wondered, be Tohru, too? It did sort of sound like him, although she had a hard time picturing him as a little kid. "But, mom," the voice continued, and it had a shaky little snivel in it. "Aren't you sad? Aren't you gonna cry for dad, too?"

"Tears are meaningless," snarled the woman. "What's done is done. Nothing we say or do now can bring him back. There's no point in any of it. Go, you have homework."

"Now there," said the real Tohru, next to Minako's ear, "is someone I haven't heard from in a very long time…I guess maybe she made a special appearance just for you."

"Is that…your mother?" asked Minako, half-hoping he was going to say no.

"Yup," he agreed. "Sooo many years ago…yeah, I guess I don't know when exactly that was. I must have been fourteen. Wow, memory lane…"

"But how could she-?" Minako started to say, before a whole cacophony of voices broke in and interrupted the sentence.

"Tohru's a loser," sang a chorus of what sounded like children. "Tohru's a loser…"

"Ew," said a little girl. "Don't play with him, he's a crybaby…"

"Did you hear?" asked what Minako was pretty sure was a different girl. "I think his dad just died!"

"Wow, really?" asked the first girl. "Wait, wasn't he that scary-looking guy who used to drop him off at school? Yikes, I wouldn't want to have a dad like that…"

"Jeez, kids can be pretty mean sometimes," said Tohru. He sounded so…so un-phased by this. Minako couldn't figure out what to think. "I guess it's not so different, though. They just grow up into people who do the same damn things…jumping to conclusions, throwing rumors around…"

Minako just kept listening. It was like she couldn't stop now, no matter how badly she wanted to cover her ears.

"I'm just going out to do some shopping," said a young woman's voice. "I'll be back in a few hours, okay Tohru? Try to do some job hunting while I'm gone."

"Sure thing, Hinata," said the younger Tohru. "Wait, do you want some help? I can drive you to the store."

"No," said the woman, apparently named Hinata. "I'll be fine, and you have work to do. I'll see you soon."

There was the sound of a door closing, and then younger Tohru murmuring, "I love you too…"

"Who…?" began Minako, but she couldn't seem to get all of the words out. It was all too obvious who that person probably was. It was the girl that Tohru had told her about that time in Shiroku pub, the one who had broken his heart. So, her name was Hinata…just like the murdered high schooler. No wonder he'd flinched when Minako had mentioned that high schooler's name. It hadn't been related at all, it had just been an awful coincidence…

Now, for some reason, Hinata was crying. "What did you expect, Tohru?" she asked. "You're no real use!" Then came the sound of a glass breaking.

"I-I'm sorry," said the younger Tohru. "Hinata, I…please don't cry. Look, we can fix this, we can…"

Minako realized that she was shaking. The tears starting coming, although in some strange, nonsensical way she couldn't figure out if the tears she was hearing and feeling were hers, or that girl Hinata's.

"Please stop," she whispered. "I don't want to hear anymore…make it stop. I want to go home…"

Instinctively, she clung to Tohru, and after a moment, felt him holding her against his chest. He stroked her hair with one hand, and then muttered, "Shit, why did I…this was a bad idea. Let's get out of here."

As he led her back in the direction from which they'd come, Minako heard one last voice call out after her into the stillness that remained once Hinata was finished speaking. It was her own voice, again, saying words that Minako had already forgotten she'd even said.

"Thanks for coming," said Minako's voice, chasing them away. "I feel safer, not having to walk around alone…"

She wasn't sure how long it took to get back to the entrance to her living room TV, but eventually, Tohru stopped. Minako didn't let go of him. She could still hear those horrible voices dancing around her mind. The screams, and the tears, and the derision…

"So," said Tohru quietly, peeling Minako off of him and standing her up on her own two feet. "Now you know. That's what I really am. All of that, that's…that's the truth. Happy, now? I did what you wanted."

Minako nodded silently. "You…" she began.

Tohru laughed bitterly. "Go on, say it," he muttered. "I'm ready for it. Tell what a bastard I am, and how disappointed you are. How you thought I was somebody else, and I shouldn't expect any better from you now that you know the truth. The truth? Heh. I guess this is the closest thing to the truth that you're gonna get. It's what everybody else really thinks. Isn't that really what the truth is, in the end? The collective assumptions of all the people who judge you from the sidelines."

"Tohru?" whispered Minako.

"Yeah, what?" snarled Tohru.

"I…" Minako swallowed hard, trying to steady her voice. "I don't want you to go back to that place anymore. Nobody...nobody should have to live like that, haunted by all the bad things that everyone's done and said to them…no one can live like that. It…it'll drive you insane. It's…it's okay. You don't have to live like that anymore. I won't let you. So, don't be scared…"

Tohru just stood there, stiff with surprise, while Minako put her arms around him again and held him close to her. She knew that she was doing it mostly for her own comfort, as she tried to force out the images that had come into her head along with the voices.

His lips brushed against the top of Minako's head as she held him there. "I wasn't scared before," he informed her. "But…now, yeah. Now I'm scared as hell."


	20. Nineteen - Christmas Eve

**Author's Note: **This chapter contains a lot of introspection and important plot clues. A little bit of the stuff here is repeat from **Piecekeeping**, and for that I apologize, but it is very important stuff that we are going to see play out in both stories in a very big way, so I figure if I had to repeat anything, this was probably it. Wouldn't want you to miss it and get confused later.

**Nineteen – Christmas Eve**

Minako stumbled back out of the TV, feeling cold and unsettled.

"Good, you're here," began Junpei. He must have been waiting for her out there that whole time, thought Minako. "Wait," said Junpei, suddenly sounding worried. "Holy crap, what happened? Hey, Minako? You look terrible. You're shaking." He put an arm around her shoulders, and Minako leaned gratefully into it.

"What did he do to you?" growled Junpei.

Hurriedly, Minako shook her head. "Nothing, he didn't do anything," she assured him. "There are just…scary things in there. Sometimes, the things that come out of people's heads are…"

"We knew that already," Junpei muttered. "I told you not to go in there alone."

"I wasn't alone," she whispered, but she didn't think that Junpei was really listening.

Slowly, they walked back through the streets together, towards the party. Aware that she couldn't let the others see her like this, Minako did her best to get a hold on herself. She tried as hard as she could to compose her thoughts, to look rationally at what had just happened in that horrible place inside the TV world. Tohru had said that he'd made that place. Did that mean it was the world that came out of his mind? Yosuke and Yu had told her about places like that. When they'd first gone in to rescue their friends, they'd discovered that everyone's mind, if left alone in the TV world for too long, would create a place to store all of those secret, unbidden thoughts and suppressed memories. So, she thought, that was what the inside of Tohru's mind was really like. The TV world just made it bigger, louder, more real, but…even if he walked away from it, it'd follow him, inside his head. Every moment of everyday, he kept tormenting himself with the voices and faces of the people who'd hurt him or rejected him. How could anyone get through life like that? It was terrible just to think about, let alone to experience for herself, as she just had. No wonder he was miserable and angry. What had trapped him in that horrible psychological rut, going around and around again, over the same old grudges and slights?

"It wasn't just the power that was too much for him," she whispered to herself and to no one. The very nature of the TV world, the way it took everything that was inside him, showed it off and let him keep reliving it was tearing him apart. What was it that Theodore had said? People who had never faced themselves sometimes suffered in the TV world. She couldn't remember exactly what it was that happened to t hose people, but she knew that Yu had been worried about it. He'd been terrified that those same things might happen to him, and that was what had started that whole debacle with the rabbit shadow six months previously. Yu's power had been granted to him by the goddess Izanami, as part of her twisted game. Tohru had been the same way, hadn't he? He'd never been given the chance to take what was inside himself and accept it. He'd just…

"Panicked," whispered Minako.

"Huh?" asked Junpei. "Did you say something?"

"No, sorry," murmured Minako. She remembered when she'd faced her own shadow, unexpectedly, but surrounded by her SEES friends, having just come back from the Seal. It had been frightening, terrifying, even. Still, everyone had been with her. She'd known that she was going to be all right, that she was going to be safe.

Tohru had never had anyone to face the darkness with. Instead, it had just engulfed him, eaten him alive, so to speak, and now he couldn't find himself inside it. He wasn't Yu. He wasn't a shining example of a human being, destined for leadership and a bright, supportive future. Tohru was just a guy, like every other guy, who was full of horrible things that he didn't want to admit, and had never managed to own. Now, those things were owning him, instead. She had heard that for certain in the voices inside the TV world. He was haunted by the parts of himself that he wanted so badly to let go.

Now, though, she told herself firmly, things were different. They were going to change. He wasn't alone inside his head anymore. She wasn't going to let him be alone.

"We're here," Junpei told her, stopping in front of what she assumed was his house. "Listen, if you want a few minutes to pull yourself together, I can stay out here with you until you're ready. It's Christmas. This is supposed to be fun. I don't want you to go back in and spend the whole party brooding and muttering to yourself like you do sometimes."

Minako gave him an absent –minded smile. "I'll be fine," she said distractedly. "I promise."

She did feel a little bit guilty about lying. There was no chance that she was going to spend the rest of the party trying to take her mind off of what had just happened. What she needed to do right now, she decided, wasn't to go and eat cookies with her friends. She needed to find and speak to Yu, as soon as possible, to ask him about what he remembered from the things that Theodore had told them the previous summer.

Luckily, he wasn't hard to find. She heard him almost immediately, chatting over by the sofa with Fuuka and Nanako.

"Yu?" she asked, almost as soon as she'd gotten within hearing range. "Can I talk to you for a second? I…I have some questions. Please? I really need your help."

Yu must have heard the unmasked urgency in her voice, because he immediately started wheeling himself forward towards her.

"Of course," he said. "Do you want to go back out side? It's a little crowded in here…"

Again, Minako found her way over to the door, and then held it open so that Yu could push himself through it. When they were both on the pavement outside the house, she took a deep breath.

"How is he?" asked Yu, unexpectedly.

Minako opened her mouth, then closed it. "Who?" she asked.

"Adachi-san," Yu clarified. "You went to see him just now, didn't you?"

Minako, not for the first time, was both surprised and slightly appalled by how good he was at this guessing game. "Yes, I…how did you know?" she asked.

Yu laughed quietly. "I didn't, but…you look upset, so I figured. He tends to have that effect on people."

Minako tried to smile back. "Oh," she told him. "Well, Tohru's, um…he's…"

"He's not so good, huh?" asked Yu, with a sigh. "I…kinda thought that would be the case."

"I'm not sure we did him any favors by locking him in the TV world," she agreed.

"I've been wondering about that," murmured Yu. "So, what did you want to ask me?"

Minako had to take a moment to figure out just exactly which of the thousand questions in her head she really did need to know the answer to first. "Last summer," she began, "You, Nanako, Yosuke and I went into the TV world to talk to Theodore, remember?"

"I remember," affirmed Yu.

"And," continued Minako, "Theodore told us something, about what can happen to people like you, people who were given the power of persona, but who didn't find it for themselves. People who never had the chance to face themselves. Do you remember what he said? Because I can't quite…"

She heard Yu's little intake of breath, and realized, all too late, that this was a very personal question for him. Maybe this wasn't the right thing to ask, or even the right time to ask it. Once upon a time, she knew that he'd had nightmares about the things that Theodore had told them that day. It was cruel of her to open up those wounds and to remind him of things that he was probably trying to forget, but at the same time, if anyone was going to be able to give her the answers she needed, it was Yu, who was so personally affected by this sort of a situation.

"I'm sorry," she said, and she meant it. "But I have to know, and Theodore…" She bit her lip. Asking Theodore, unfortunately, was no longer an option, even if Nanako was to be believed about his consciousness still floating around in the Velvet Room.

"It's okay," Yu told her, just a little bit less levelly than he normally did. "I'm guessing you have a good reason. Yes, I know what Theodore said. He said that people like me, people who have never faced themselves are prone to unstable interactions with the Velvet Room. Just like you and I, anyone who has a persona that they haven't faced or conquered can be subject to attack by shadows, if they aren't strong enough or in enough control of themselves to fend them off."

Minako nodded as he spoke. Yes, she thought, yes, that was right. In her case, it had nothing to do with facing herself. It was because of her separation from the persona that had been protecting her mind and soul for so long. In Yu's case…

"That's not what happened to you," she reminded him. "You already proved that you were strong enough o cope with yourself. Your mind was violated because of the Seal that you and I made. That's why, no other reason. You do know that, don't you?"

"Yeah," said Yu. "I…I think I believe that."

There was silence between them for a moment, as Minako was reluctant to break in on whatever reverie Yu might be in the midst of. Finally, he spoke again.

"There's something else I want to tell you about," he said. "I've been thinking a lot about us, and about what happened to us that day, when we re-formed the Seal. Haven't you ever wondered why you went blind, and why I lost the use of my legs?"

Minako snorted. She couldn't help herself. "Was that a serious question?" she asked him. "Of course I wonder. I wonder about it every day."

"Yeah," said Yu. "Well, I have an idea about that. I think it has to do with who we are, as people."

Minako frowned. "What does that mean?" she asked him.

"It's like this," insisted Yu. "And this is only a theory, so don't take it too much to heart, but…in my head, it makes sense. I've known you for a while now, and I know a lot of your friends. Everyone says the same thing about you. You're good with people. You can see who people really are. That's what's important to you, about yourself. Am I right?"

Minako just nodded. Yes, she thought. That did sound like what she aspired to.

"So," continued Yu, "when we let the shadows into your mind, they started filling you up with darkness. You couldn't help it – we knew that it was going to happen. We accepted it. But when we did, you started to lose track of who you are, or the person that you knew that were before you lost your persona. In your mind, you were someone who could see people, so when the darkness came, the first thing that went with it was your sight. It's…it's like a manifestation, just like everything else that happens in the Velvet Room."

Minako was beginning to understand what Yu was getting at. "So in your case," she said, picking up where he had left off, "You're a leader. You're someone who takes action, can figure out what the right thing to do is at any time. That's why you lost your legs. You can't take action anymore."

"Right," agreed Yu. "So…what do you think? Does that sound like it might be the reason? I know that there's nothing really wrong with our brains. The doctors can't find anything on any scans or tests. It's that place inside our minds, the place that houses the Velvet Room. That's what's damaged, nothing else."

Shrugging, Minako sighed. "It doesn't matter what I think," she informed him. "We'll never know for sure until we can talk to someone inside the Velvet Rom about it, and we'll never be able to do that, not unless we get help."

"But we have help," Yu reminded her. "We have the best help there is. Let's ask Yosuke and Nanako about it tomorrow. Maybe they can ask Igor the next time they go in on patrol."


	21. Twenty - Christmas Day

**Author's Note: **And now, finally, a peaceful, fluffy moment. Sort of.

**Twenty – Christmas Day**

For once, Adachi was actually in the Velvet Room when Nanako came for him.

After the events of the night before, he didn't want to spend any more time in Magatsu Inaba. Before, it had been satisfying in a destructive, painful way to sit and listen to those voices. Now, though, Minako's voice was getting more and more prevalent in that world.

Now, she said things like "Nobody can live like that, I won't let you!" and "Don't be afraid." It was that last phrase that really got to him. She'd been totally unguarded when she'd said that, and there was a wealth of emotion in those words that even through all of their various ups and downs together, Adachi couldn't remember ever hearing from her before. Listening to it gave him something that nauseated him and kept him unbalanced. It gave him hope. If there was one thing that he hated more than anything else, it was hope. Hope was a treacherous creature, too treacherous even for Adachi, who counted himself the king of betrayals. He didn't enjoy being on the other end of that.

"Adachi-san?" called out Nanako, sounding worried. "Adachi-san, um, merry Christmas!"

The innocent greeting made his cheek get hot where Minako had kissed him the night before, when she was wishing him the same thing.

"Yeah, same to you," muttered Adachi. "Did you get some nice presents?"

"I don't know," Nanako admitted "Dad says we can't open presents until later, because…"

Suddenly, Adachi could hear the sound of footsteps coming from outside the Velvet Room door. Nanako started to look panicked.

"Come on!" she said, grabbing and tugging on his arm. "We have to hurry!"

"Wait, why?" asked Adachi, but Nanako wasn't listening. She grabbed his hand and ran straight from the exit to the shopping district.

"You should go outside," she told him, almost shoving him through the door. "It's okay! I don't mind! Um, don't come back till later, okay? So…uh…you can have the whole day! Even until midnight!" She beamed anxiously at him. "Cause, um, it's Christmas!"

"Thanks, I think…" murmured Adachi. It still annoyed him that he had to take orders from an eight year old, but at least she was making the effort to give him a generous holiday gift. The little part of him that had been raised to show gratitude kicked in enough to keep him from showing how much the curfew rankled.

His first thought, of course, was to go and find Minako. Then again, he remembered, she had made it pretty clear that she didn't want him "creeping" up on her in her own home. He scowled, assuming that she was probably spending the day with that guy Shinjiro, or apparently with Yosuke, whom she seemed to have over at her place enough to make her mention it the other night. He did not understand what she saw in those two. That boyfriend of hers never seemed to have anything intelligent to say. For a bright, spirited girl like her, he just seemed like a weird fit. He stood out when they were together. As for Yosuke, well…Tohru didn't even want to waste time thinking about all the nasty things he wanted to call that kid. Talk about somebody who just wouldn't ever grow up…

Then he laughed. It was perverse, he thought, trying to make himself out in his mind to be some kind of great catch. There was even less to see in him than there was in these other saps. If Minako's only options were a mute, a juvenile hero-type, and a murderer, then she should really aim a little bit higher. She could, he knew. She was worth it.

"Tohru?" asked Minako's voice. For a moment, Adachi was so used to the cacophony of Magatsu Inaba that he didn't even look up, assuming unconsciously that it was one of those voices Then Minako's fingers touched his arm, and he glanced in surprise into her sightless face. She was standing right next to him, smiling hesitantly. There were these stupid new Christmas-themed clips in her brown hair, which looked like they were supposed to be mistletoe. It was childish and charming.

"Hi," he said. "So…I guess this was your idea?" He hoped so. Even if all she wanted was to ask him more questions, he liked to think that she'd come because she wanted to.

"Well…yes and no," she admitted. "There's a lot of stuff going on in the Velvet Room today. Everyone's busy, and it's the holidays, so…" She shrugged. "I thought maybe you and I could do something together. Unless you've got other plans." There was just a hint of teasing in that last comment that boiled Adachi's blood and made him want her closer to him at the same time.

They started walking through the shopping district together, which was empty. He assumed that everyone was off of work and spending the day at home with their families, leaving the streets pretty clear. "So, what's it gonna be today?" he asked sarcastically. "Solving a murder? Chasing a bad guy? Or am I lucky today, and we're gonna get lunch while you try to figure out how my brain works again?" Even as he spoke, he was frustrated with himself. He didn't want to talk to her like that, didn't want to be so bitter and derisive. He wanted to make her smile, to watch her laugh at his jokes, but every time he thought about her, all he could seem to do was make it clearer and clearer to her how much he didn't want her around. It was a defense mechanism, he knew, one that he was really glad he had in place. At least if he made it clear that he was rejecting her, she wasn't gonna have the option of turning around and rejecting him.

"Um, actually," said Minako, apparently totally un-phased by his sarcasm, "I was thinking of something a little lower key, like…maybe a movie? I don't think there are that many theaters we can get to from here, but I've got that internet rental thing at my place. Oh, and I think Aiya still delivers on Christmas, because I know you get hungry when you're out of the Velvet Room."

Adachi stopped stewing for minute. Had he heard that right? "So…" he said carefully, "then, this is a date."

"Yeah," agreed Minako. There was no way she was blushing, was there? "Although, like I said, not much is open, so it'll probably be pretty boring for you…"

"I think I'll be fine," Adachi assured her quickly. "Hey, I love Chinese food."

They ended up in front of Minako's house again, and of course Adachi was suddenly full of uncomfortable feelings. The last time he'd been inside there, he'd…well, he'd be thinking about that night pretty much every lonely night he spent for the rest of his life. He wasn't particularly proud of it, though. This time, things were going to be different. He was going to act like a man, not like a horny sixteen year old boy. He was going to have to exercise some self control, which he could do, he reminded himself, because he was Tohru Adachi, ace detective, the man who'd successfully pulled off the Inaba murders for months without getting caught because he knew how to be calm, patient, and rational about things.

Unexpectedly, Minako slipped her hand into his as she opened the front door. Okay, he told himself, deflating slightly. This might be just a little harder than he'd thought.

They went into the living room, and there was the TV, and the couch…so many images went through Adachi's head when he looked at the couch. He could feel the heat in his face, as he frantically tried to dismiss those thoughts. "Jeez, pull yourself together, Tohru," he mumbled under his breath.

"Hmm?" asked Minako, as she fumbled around in the sofa cushions for the remote.

Adachi, who could see it, pulled it out and passed it to her. "Nope, nothing," he said. "Wait, how do you even watch movies?"

"I don't," admitted Minako, switching the TV on. "I listen to them. I know, it's weird, but it's really relaxing. I can make the images up in my head while I listen to the sound track, especially if it's with actors that I've actually seen before."

"What kind of movies do you like?" he asked her. "I guess we should pick something you've seen before, right?"

"Doesn't matter, she assured him. "I'm easy."

Adachi tried really hard not to take that comment in the wrong direction. Then again, he admitted to himself, she wasn't wrong about that…

"Although, honestly, I'm a really big fan of crime films," she continued, apparently blissfully unaware of what was going on in Adachi's head. "There tend to be a lot of explosions…and um, explosions are usually really noisy, which helps. Also, there's always some bad guy who explains his whole plan at the end really carefully…and that makes it easier not to have to see exactly what was going on to understand."

"Monologuing villains…not like that ever happens in the real world. Our job would be so much easier if it did." Adachi sighed.

For some reason, Minako smiled. "Oh," she said.

Adachi raised an eyebrow at her. "What?" he asked.

"You were talking about yourself like you're a detective," she told him. "You don't usually do that. Usually you say things about how you're a great criminal."

"I told you once before that I'm an amazing detective," Adachi reminded her.

Minako just shrugged. "Yeah, but this time it was different."

Maybe, thought Adachi, it was something about the atmosphere. Sitting on the sofa, watching Minako reaching for the Chinese food menu that was apparently the only thing she kept pinned to the fridge, it was so easy to forget that life wasn't really like this. Everything felt so…delectably normal, right now. She was acting like it wasn't weird, having a convicted murderer who was supposed to be dead sitting in front of her TV. It took him back to the days before everything had spiraled out of control, when it had been just him and Hinata trying to make something out of a day off on a very low budget.

Thoughts about Hinata suddenly darkened his perspective a bit, and he shook his head, scowling to himself. Yeah, he thought, that had started out pretty well, and look how that had ended. Normal didn't necessarily make it okay.

"Here," said Minako, handing him the menu. "Pick something you like. I already know what to order."

"Yeah?" asked Tohru. "What do you get?"

"Beef with Broccoli," she informed him. "Only…I don't eat the broccoli."

He laughed. "Wait, seriously? Your favorite thing to watch are action movies where stuff explodes, and you won't eat your vegetables? Jeez, I am feeling older and older by the second…"

Minako turned slightly pink. "Hey," she began.

"No, no," insisted Adachi quickly, "It's cute. Trust me, it's cute." He was being sincere about that, too. It was freaking adorable.

Eventually, they did settle on something, and Minako went ahead and made the phone call to Aiya. Then they switched on the movie and settled back at a safe distance from each other on the couch.

"Are you sure this okay?" asked Minako, as the credits rolled. "I know that you're never supposed to drag a cop to a police movie…they always get angry about things being unrealistic, or not being the way they would be in the real world."

"Yeah…" mumbled Adachi. "Can't say I really care about that. I mean…the 'real world' is kind of a fuzzy concept these days." Minako laughed. "Besides, why bother getting upset about it? There's nothing wrong with fantasy. Just let that become your reality for a while. That's what escapism's supposed to be, right?"

He was having a hard time concentrating on the film. The fact was, if this was really a date, they were just too far apart. For a moment, he contemplated asking her if it was all right for him to hold her, and then realized that doing that would make him sound even more like a awkward teenage loverboy than he had before. There was only one reasonable way to solve this problem.

He let out an exaggerated yawn. "Wow, all those nights of not sleeping in the Velvet Room," he exclaimed, stretching his arms up over his head as he yawned. "I guess they're really starting to get to me."Bringing one arm down around her shoulders, he pulled her closer to him on the couch.

There was a beat of silence, before Minako burst out laughing.

"Really?" she asked incredulously.

For some reason, she couldn't seem to stop laughing. That was a little embarrassing, he had to admit, but at least she didn't shake him off or push him away, so he decided that he could put up with it. Besides, it was nice just getting to touch her like this. Everything seemed sort of surreal, so drastically different from the way it had all been the night before, when they'd been forcing themselves through Magatsu Inaba together. He could still picture the tears in her eyes when she'd heard Hinata telling him off from the depths of his own mind.

"I want to go home," she'd said.

So, he thought, this was home, huh? He'd almost forgotten how good it felt to really have one of those. Maybe it took someone else to make it a home. Dojima, Yu, and Nanako –chan had always seemed happier when they'd all been together, too. What had Dojima-san said? When Yu had come to stay with them, they'd finally become a family? It had seemed pretty darn stupid at the time, especially since Adachi was pretty sure that all "family" meant was some people that you were unlucky enough to be related to by blood.

Still, holding Minako like this, and feeling the way her hair wisped out to tickle the bare place under his collar, he was starting to wonder if maybe there was something behind the idea that having someone else around made things feel just a little better.

She shifted against him, and he looked over to see her with her eyes closed, apparently focusing all of her attention on listening to the movie. Something about those closed eyes reminded him of the time that she'd really and truly opened them and seen him for the first and last time. She'd looked horrified and sickened, and it turned his stomach to remember it. All of those beautiful ideas of who he was had just run right out of her head, and she'd hated him like those other women had hated him.

This wasn't real, he reminded himself. This was just the pretty ideas she had in her head, the way she'd deluded herself into thinking things were going to work. Maybe she was trying to drag him along for the ride, but he knew better. He knew what he really was, and deep down, so did she. He shouldn't let himself enjoy this. He shouldn't let himself get used to it, because in the end it would evaporate and turn into regret like everything else.

He pulled his arm away from her abruptly, but she reached out and took it back, settling it back around her shoulders and moving in closer to him.

"It's okay," she assured him. "Don't be scared, remember?"

Adachi didn't know what to say to that.


	22. Twenty One - Christmas Day

**Author's Note: **This chapter is…kind of a big deal. A lot happens. Things are resolved. Other things are…begun. Anyway, we are reaching the end of one of Minako's arcs. Fear not, she's got more where that came from…I feel like this character has more to her than maybe any other I've ever written.

I should let you know that there are two crazily action-packed, plot-driven **Piecekeeping** chapters on the burner, but that I can't get them fully typed up until Wednesday night. I'm disappointed, because I can't wait to share them with you, but it will be a busy couple of days, so in the meantime, please bear with me, and thank you for your patience. There is much, more excitement to come, and I truly hope that you'll enjoy it.

**Twenty One – Christmas Day**

When the food arrived at the door, Minako went to get it.

"Here you go, Miss Arisato!" said the delivery girl. "Ordering for two today? Ooh, do you have a Christmas date?"

Somehow, Minako got the sense that the delivery girl was trying to get around her to look back into the living room. "Thank you," she said firmly, and shut the door.

"Good," said Tohru, as she laid the food out on the table that she'd asked him to help her pull in front of the TV. "I'm starving."

"I sort of assumed," agreed Minako. As delicately and discreetly as she could, she opened the lid of her beef with broccoli dish, and began prodding each morsel with her fork in an attempt to figure out which was the beef, and which was the broccoli. Any identifiable broccoli, she forked carefully back on to the discarded lid.

"…this is kinda pathetic to watch," remarked Tohru. "Do you need me to do it for you?"

Minako felt herself turn red. "No," she mumbled, "I'm fine."

A few more minutes of fork stabbing went by, until Minako suddenly realized that she thought she could hear the sounds of chewing from the space next to her on the couch.

"Wait, are you eating already?" she asked.

"Mgmph, yeah," mumbled Tohru, apparently around a bite of food. "Course. Why?"

"You could at least wait until I've got mine sorted out first," Minako muttered.

Tohru sighed. "That…could take a really long time," he observed. "I'm hungry. Fine, here." Minako felt the fork being tugged out of her hand. "Tell you what, I'll take your broccoli, okay? Just…let's get this operation over with."

She forced herself to sit quietly and endure it while he finished taking the offensive vegetables off of her plate, and deposited them all on to his own. In an act of peevish rebellion, she started eating before he'd finished the job, and heard him laugh as she stuck the first bite into her mouth.

"Seriously, though, you eat like a kid," mumbled Tohru. "Do you do this when you're out, too?"

"Don't talk with your mouth full," suggested Minako. He didn't have much right, she decided, to talk about eating habits when she could hear the way he didn't bother to swallow his food before he tried to talk around it.

They had paused the movie while Minako was getting the door, and now she ran her fingers along the couch cushions, trying to find the remote so that she could turn it on again. Instead of the remote, she encountered Tohru's fingers pressed down on the sofa not too far from her own. He moved his hand aside when she touched it, revealing the remote not too far from his fingertips.

"Here," he said, pushing it over towards her. "So, why'd you have to get me out of the way today?"

Minako winced. She'd hoped it wasn't quite that obvious. "What do you mean?" she asked, as innocently as she could.

"Come on, I'm not stupid," remarked Tohru. "Nanako-chan came running in there, freaking out, and then all of a sudden you were waiting for me outside? So, what was it? What's happening in the Velvet Room that you don't want me to see?"

There wasn't much use in denying it. Minako shrugged. "Actually, it's the other way around. We don't…we're trying not to let someone else see you…"

Briefly, she told him, perhaps against her better judgment, about Dojima's unexpected introduction to the TV world. She heard Tohru's exclamation of surprise when she brought up the fact that Dojima was, hopefully, still sitting outside in the electronics department, guarded closely by Yu.

"So you're both on babysitting duty today, huh?" asked Tohru. "I guess I shouldn't be disappointed. Either way, I get free lunch."

For some reason, that hurt Minako. "No, it's not like that," she insisted. "I wanted to spend Christmas with you."

"Again," muttered Tohru, "I've gotta ask…why?"

As it always did, that question stumped Minako. She thought she'd known the answer when she'd woken up a few hours ago. A few hours ago, she'd had a head full of visions of how much Tohru needed her. Now, though, she had to confess that she was…really having a lot of fun. Things were very different now from the way they'd been inside the Velvet Room the night before. Out of that context, she wasn't sure what to tell him.

"You were so miserable in that place, alone," she hazarded, sticking to the theme she'd prepared. "I wanted to make you feel better…"

"Sure," muttered Tohru. Why, wondered Minako, did he sound like she'd let him down? "Oh, well. I probably knew that already. Anyone ever tell you that it wouldn't' kill you to be selfish, sometimes?"

That, thought Minako, was pretty much exactly what Junpei had said to her not too long ago. He'd sounded angry when he'd said it, and she hadn't totally understood it then. Now Tohru sounded kind of bitter about it, too. Why was everyone saying these things to her? Why couldn't they understand that all she was trying to do was help?

"Don't look like that," said Tohru. "Come on, a guy can hope, can't he?"

Minako didn't get it. "Hope for what?" she asked.

"I don't know," sighed Tohru sarcastically, "maybe hope that you asked me over because you just wanted to have me here?"

"That's what I-!" began Minako.

"No, you're not listening," interrupted Tohru, in that condescending way he sometimes took with her. "You said you brought me here for my benefit. That's great, that's…that's very like you. You're all about the goody-two-shoes, good Samaritan thing, but…I've got this crazy idea that maybe, one day, you'll want to see me just because it makes you feel good."

Minako had to think about that for a moment. "It does make me feel good," she said slowly. "I…I like making you happy." Okay, maybe that hadn't been the right way to phrase it. After all, she couldn't ever really remember a time when she could honestly say that Tohru had been genuinely happy. The best she'd managed was to make him sort of wryly amused, or turned on. Still, even that was better than miserable, bitter, and lonely.

"Let's say you win the game," he was saying. Something about his tone was just too casual for the serious context. "Let's say it turns out that you rehabilitate me, you make it all better, and I someday wake up a shiny new man with a new understanding of love, friendship and the…okay, I can't even say this stuff, it's making me sick just talking about it. Anyway. Let's say that happens. What do you do, then? You get what you wanted, you save a soul, and then you…what, just leave? Go on to your next fixer-upper?" He laughed, and it was that derisive, self-deprecating little laugh, again.

Minako didn't say anything. She wasn't sure what he even wanted her to say.

Apparently, her silence was all he needed to hear. "I figured," he sighed. "Well, it's not like I'm ungrateful. You're a sweet kid, but…if you ask me, you need a new hobby." Reaching over, he took the remote away from her and switched the movie back on. "Remind me," he told her over the sound of gunshots that came from the TV set, "to kill someone every couple of weeks…or maybe to try and off myself. You know, to keep you interested. Wouldn't want you to get bored, with nothing to do."

He went quiet, apparently now watching the movie, and Minako was frustrated and annoyed. He was baiting her again, she knew, with all that stuff about her being a "goody-two-shoes," and a "sweet kid." She didn't want him to think of her as a "sweet kid." She wasn't just a kid, and she wasn't just some saint, she was…

That took her aback for a moment. How, she asked herself, did she want Tohru to see her?

"Tohru," she said.

There was no response.

"Tohru," she insisted again, a little louder this time.

Again, he didn't say anything. Maybe the sound of the movie was too loud, but…somehow, she got the sense that he was ignoring her.

"Hey!" Infuriated, she reached out, found his face, and put both hands on either side of it, forcing him to turn and look at her. "Listen to me! That's not…I do care about you. I…I want you to be here with me, that's why I…" Confused, she fumbled the line.

There was an awkward moment's silence.

"Wow," murmured Tohru, a little more shakily than she'd expected. "And that's all I had to do to get you to say it. I just had to ignore you for a couple of seconds? You really are just a kid."

"Stop calling me that," she told him.

"Heh. You have to admit, though," he continued, "I got you that time. Now you know what it feels like." He took one of the hands that she still had pressed against his face, and pulled it up to meet his lips, brushing them lightly across her fingertips. His hands were a little unsteady too, she realized. He wasn't as collected as he was pretending to be at all. "Think I'll get something even better if I ignore you again?" he asked her.

"Don't you dare," muttered Minako.

He laughed. "Fair enough," he told her. Then his fingers were in her hair, at the back of her head, and he kissed her earnestly. She felt herself draw closer to him as he changed his grip and sought for her shoulders, supporting her against him as he kissed her again, and again.

Unusually for her, Minako closed her eyes.

"Oh, what the hell…I can't resist you for that long anyway," he said breathlessly, when he finally took a moment to release her. "Give me a chance. Listen, I'm serious, I don't know what else to do. It's too late for me, I'm all yours. I want to be your man, not just your 'saver of the week.' Jeez, I sound like such a sap right now, I can't…god fucking damnit." He kept kissing her, like he was afraid that if he stopped for too long, she'd evaporate in his hands. "Just, give me a chance to be whoever the hell it is you think I am."

It was frightening, hearing him talk this way all of a sudden. Minako had never heard so much desperation in his voice before, not even when she'd listened to the younger Tohru in the TV world trying to convince Hinata not to cry. She hated it, hearing what he was putting himself through, the pain behind those pleas. "Stop it!" she cried.

Instantly, he stopped, and then abruptly let her go, almost in the same moment. As she caught herself on the couch cushions, Minako realized that she'd shouted in her panic, much louder than she'd intended.

"Yeah," he mumbled. "Okay. I am…really a sucker for punishment, huh?"

As she sat there, still slightly stunned, she listened to the sound of him getting up off of the couch. It shifted slightly as his weight left it, and Minako realized that he was probably heading for the TV. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but couldn't figure out how to put all or any of it into coherent words.

"You taste like broccoli," she heard herself say.

Tohru's footsteps stopped. "W-what?" he asked, incredulous.

"The…the broccoli," stammered Minako, feeling her brain turn off and continuing to talk anyway, inventing as she went. "You, um…I think I have a breath mint here, somewhere."

Scrabbling in her pockets, Minako was amazed to discover that she did, in fact, seem to have a breath mint. Slowly, Tohru made his way back to the couch, and sat down on the very edge. He took the mint out of her hand.

"I…really don't like broccoli," she murmured helplessly.

There was a pause so tense that it was tangible. Minako found that she was having trouble not reaching out to him. She didn't want him to feel like that anymore, she didn't want him to leave. He needed to know that, and that she wanted him to stay close to her, but in the face of everything that was happening and all the stunningly unexpected feelings that were being thrown around, she didn't know how to tell him, or even exactly what it was she had to tell.

"Yes," she managed to say.

"What…the hell does that mean?" asked Tohru, a little hoarsely.

Minako took a deep breath. "Yes," she repeated, "I want to…to be with you."

He didn't say anything, but she heard the little noise he made, something between a gasp and a sob. Slowly, he gathered her into his arms, and held her there, and she listened to the sound of his unsteady breathing for several long moments as the atmosphere around them calmed to something that at least began to make sense again.

When she felt like she was back in a mental space that she recognized, Minako bit her lip. "Tohru," she said to him, "I need you to do something for me."

"Sure, anything," he muttered, like he meant it.

"You're not going to like it," she insisted.

She felt him shake his head against her. "Who cares? I…I said anything, didn't I? What do you want me to do?"

Carefully, aware that everything around them right now was remarkably fragile, Minako told Tohru what she knew about the Velvet Room. She told him what she remembered from her conversation with Theodore, as well as what Yu had confirmed for her the night before, about the way that shadows could invade the minds of un-tested persona users. Throughout the whole monologue, Tohru didn't say anything.

"I want you to go and see what's in there," she finished. "What's inside your mind, what's hurting you…I need to know that you can face it. I think…that you need to know, too."

"I can't," whispered Tohru. "That's crazy. We've seen that stuff before, it's…it's too much for one guy to face on his own."

Minako bit her lip. "Please," she begged him. "I need this. I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think it was worth doing. I don't just want it for you, I…I want it for me. I want to know."

"Tch," spat Tohru quietly. "A suicide mission, huh? I thought you weren't into that sort of thing."

Minako shook her head furiously. "No, it's nothing like that. I believe in you, I…if I didn't, I wouldn't even suggest it."

There was a pause, before Tohru said, "Okay. Yeah, I'll go."

Minako wasn't sure if she should be relieved or start to panic. She honestly hadn't expected him to agree to it. "You will?" she asked.

"Yeah," mumbled Tohru. "But…and I mean this, you'd better be waiting for me when I get out. Otherwise maybe I won't come out…"

Minako snuggled reassuringly into his embrace. "I will," she said. "I promise."

She felt him nodding, and was about to say something else when a very strange, nostalgic feeling suddenly washed over her, and she felt as though she was somehow frozen in time, unnoticed, for a moment, by the passing of the hours.

_I am thou_, said the inside of her mind.

Minako opened her mouth to speak, but words didn't come out.

_Thou art I_, said her mind.

Then, just as strangely and abruptly as it had begun, the feeling was over. Time started again, she could feel herself and Tohru breathing, and the bizarre voice that somehow came from part of her was gone as though it had never even been there to begin with.

Hesitantly, Minako felt around inside her mind, checking to make sure that everything was the way she expected it to be. Nothing felt different. She breathed out a sigh of…relief? Disappointment? Maybe it was a combination of the two.

"What's wrong?" asked Tohru. "You look weird."

"It's nothing," whispered Minako. Apparently, she decided, that was true.


	23. Twenty Two - December 26

**Author's Note: **Good morning, and happy Thursday!

Here is some violence, blood, and angst.

If you're reading both stories, then you'll want to go and check out the most recent **Piecekeeping** update before you read this one. Things will make more sense that way!

Oh, and an important disclaimer. This story, as it has always been, is based on the events of the Persona 4 Golden game. It is NOT based on the events of the anime, which I have never seen. I have been instructed that at the end of the anime, there is now a new episode that shows what happens when Yu faces his shadow, etc. We are not taking any of that into account here, because according to the storyline of the game, it never happened.

There, that's all, really.

Oh, no, wait, there is more! I've been using the word "perverse" a lot when it comes to my depiction of Adachi….and I get the sense from some of those recent PMs that some of you are defining it the wrong way. I think the word you're thinking of is "perverted."

The word "perverse" means "wrong, stubborn, contrary, or in opposition." So, essentially, to be "perverse" is to be "contrary to what you'd assume." I'll use it in a sentence, like any good teacher would. "In a perverse way, Adachi wanted people to love him, even though he couldn't love himself."

I hope that helps! I love words…I hope you do, too. Of course you do, you're all wonderful readers and writers!

**Twenty Two – December 26**

It was probably morning. The only reason Adachi knew that was because he was back in the Velvet Room, meaning that it was past midnight, when his curfew had kicked in. His mind was still doing its best to get a handle on the events of that Christmas day. Minako had fallen asleep in his arms while the movie credits rolled. Not the same movie, he realized. It had been a different movie. They'd watched a few of them. At some point, Minako had made tea, but then she couldn't remember where she'd put the cups down, and couldn't see them, so he'd had to go searching through he kitchen to try and figure out what she'd done. That had been annoying, and adorable. It must have been after that she'd fallen asleep on the sofa. He hadn't wanted to move too much, in case he woke her up, and then…what? He must have fallen asleep, too, because the next thing he remembered was opening his eyes to see the unwelcoming walls of the Velvet Room, and Igor's vaguely disappointed face staring down a long, pointed nose at him.

It had been a long time since he'd gotten real sleep. He never needed it, in the Velvet Room, and the few times that he was out in the real world, he was too on edge to be able to relax into sleep, no matter how tired he ended up feeling as soon as all the humanity kicked in.

"I want to be with you," she'd said. Okay, it had come out as more of a stammer, and she hadn't even sounded as though she was sure she knew what she was saying, but…every time he remembered her saying it, a little thrill shivered across his shoulder blades and down the back of his neck. Then she'd made tea, and let him kiss her again, and laughed at his stupid jokes. She'd fallen asleep right on top of him without even thinking about it. She still felt safe enough to do that, even after everything that had happened to prove her wrong.

Adachi realized that he was holding his breath. There was this vaguely uncertain feeling that if he starting breathing, or moving, reality would come rushing back and everything that had happened the day before would shatter into tiny little unsalvageable pieces.

There was something else, too, he knew. He had made a promise, and for the first time in years, he realized that he was going to be a man of his word.

Slowly, Adachi stood up and faced Igor, which deprived Igor of his ability to look down at him. Igor was, after all, not as tall as Adachi, or at least, Adachi was pretty sure of that. He couldn't really tell, since Igor had never, as far as Adachi knew, actually gotten out of his chair. Maybe, he speculated perversely, Igor didn't even have working legs.

"Hey," said Adachi.

Igor just looked at him.

"Um," began Adachi again, "I need to…" He frowned, trying to remember exactly what Minako had told him. "I need to see the doors into people's heads. Into their minds, I mean. I've got one, don't I?"

"A mind?" asked Igor, with just a slight hint of surprise in his voice, as though he doubted the answer to that question.

"A door, obviously," sneered Adachi. "Every persona user has one, right?"

"Yes," agreed Igor. "But only those of our guests who lack a certain internal strength have any need to access those doors."

"Heh," muttered Adachi. He hadn't missed the insult, but it didn't matter. At least he was getting somewhere. "Great," he said. "So, show me where I can find-!"

Igor pointed at something just behind Adachi's head, and Adachi spun around to see that there was now a large door in the wall. It definitely, he decided, had not been there the day before. There was no way he wouldn't have noticed something like that. He was the kind of guy, after all, who was good at noticing things.

The door was made of wood, but it wasn't any kind of wood, thought Adachi, that someone might see growing on a living tree. This was dead, warped wood, twisted and scarred by…something. There were claw-marks in it, but they didn't look like the claw-marks of any real world animal. They were way too big and sort of curved for that. The door had a big stained brass keyhole on it, too.

"Where's the key?" asked Adachi.

"When you are ready to enter," intoned Igor, "you will find it."

Adachi was really getting tired of all this esoteric crap. He was about to say so, when he felt the weight of something drop into his shirt pocket. Reaching in with two fingers, he pulled out a brass key.

"Right," he muttered. "Well, I guess that answers that question…"

Striding over to the door, he twisted the key in the lock, and felt it click open.

"Okay," he said, sucking in a breath. "Here we go, Tohru…better not fuck this one up."

**Meanwhile, at the Inaba police station…**

Dojima came into work late, and sat down so hard at his desk that Minako felt the whole floor shake.

"Good morning, sir," she said. Her voice came out sounding much more strained than she'd intended. The events of the day before were still playing breathlessly over in the back of her mind, and they had been all night long. She hadn't gotten much sleep, and she was paying for it now.

"Morning," muttered Dojima. He sounded almost as bad as she felt.

"Did you have a good Christmas?" she asked.

In response to that, he just grunted. It was a noncommittal grunt.

Minako sighed.

"What's gotten into you?" asked Dojima. "You sound like crap."

"Same to you, sir," murmured Minako.

"What was that?" demanded Dojima.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep talking, but somehow Minako couldn't keep herself from telling him, "You sound about as bad as I feel. Too much booze last night?"

"Huh." He snorted. "I wish. Why, is that what happened to you? You know, I could turn you in for underage drinking…"

"And then," muttered Minako, "you'd have no one who knows the right way to make your coffee, and you'd really be screwed. Try getting anything done then, I dare you."

There was a short, tense pause. Minako bit her lip.

"I said that out loud, didn't I?" she asked.

"You sure did," agreed Dojima. "What the hell happened to you last night?"

"Nothing, sir," sighed Minako. "I'm sorry. Just…man trouble."

"Oh, that." Dojima sounded like he was frowning. "I…I don't want to know about that."

Something about that was very funny. Minako had to cover her mouth with one hand to stifle a giggle. "No, sir," she agreed. "You really don't…you have no idea how much you don't want to know."

"Get to work, Arisato.," growled Dojima.

"Yes sir," chuckled Minako. "Coffee, right. I'm on it."

She did get the coffee, and somehow, after that, managed to take several phone calls and accomplish several tasks without actually thinking about any of them while she did them. She was running on autopilot. Minako couldn't focus, as her mind was completely and totally distracted by something else.

Tohru, she knew, would be waiting for her in the Velvet Room. He'd be there now, getting ready to test himself on the world inside his mind. They hadn't said that it would have to be today. She'd never insisted that he do it as soon as he got back, and he'd never told her that he would, but somehow she just knew that he would be there, right now. Would he be frightened? Of course he would. She pictured him in her mind the way he might look first thing in the morning, with his hair even more bedraggled and tousled than usual, yawning and stretching the way he had when he'd thrown his arm around her the day before in front of the TV. She liked the image. It was…cute. She'd never really thought of him as "cute" before. She'd been attracted to him, yes, even fascinated by him, against her better judgment, but she'd never thought to apply the word "cute" until now. Something about the way he'd picked the broccoli out of her Chinese food, and then helped her find her tea things…it changed the picture she had of him in her head. There was no blood on his forehead, now, no evil glint in his eyes. It made her feel good to think of him. That in itself was a strange and unexpectedly welcome feeling.

When he'd poured out his heart, and begged her to give him a chance, he'd somehow managed to slip in the ridiculous phrase "saver of the week." Was that supposed to be a word play on "flavor of the week?" It was terrible. Minako giggled into the telephone receiver.

"Miss Arisato?" said the petulant old man on the other end.

"Yes," murmured Minako. "Yes, I'm sorry. I'm here."

**Not too long afterwards, in the Velvet Room…**

The walls of Adachi's nightmare world had eyes. There were, quite literally, giant staring eyes blinking out at him from each and every corner of the shifting, sinking walls. It was deeply chilling. As he stalked through the maze that the room had turned out to be, he tried keeping his head down to avoid having to meet any of their accusing gazes.

Unfortunately, not looking where he was going left him open to sudden attack. If he hadn't heard the shadow just in time, he would have stumbled right into it. Luckily for him, it screamed.

Adachi's head snapped up, and he found himself staring into the face of a shadow that seemed to have no shape, but was somehow the essence of femininity without needing to look like anything at all. The way it moved, the way it turned its head, the way it shifted position all reminded him of every woman he'd ever met, and yet of none of them at the same time.

Then, of course, it screamed again, and the scream was a combination of all the hatred, anger, fear, and betrayal that Adachi knew he'd ever heard in the voices of the people he'd promised himself not to love. The scream had no words, just raw, intangible feeling behind it, and it froze Adachi in place for a moment, as images gone out of control went flashing helter skelter through his mind.

"Magatsu Izanagi," he rasped, and then his persona was beside him, staring disdainfully at the screaming thing. A few swift strikes of Vorpal Blade dissolved the shadow and ended the screams, leaving Adachi in silence that only made way for the images in his head to suddenly couple themselves to well-remembered voices. Shaking his head violently, he forced the thoughts away and trekked on, with Magatsu Izanagi now leading the way through the nightmare world, with blade held out in front of it.

Before too long, another shadow appeared. This one was different. It took the form of a pair of scales, weighted down on one end. As Magatsu Izanagi swung at it, the scales swung back, and the persona chose to duck away to avoid the attack, leaving Adachi open to receive the blow. The scales struck him hard across the chest, and he fell back, just managing to catch himself with one hand against the ground. A trickle of blood ran from a wound that the blow had opened, right on his collarbone. "Heh," muttered Adachi. He soaked up the pain, could feel the injury recharging him, teasing out the perverse survival instinct, even as it reminded him of how right the pain felt. Slowly, he got back to his feet.

"My turn," he said quietly, and then fired. He was a very good shot, and it only took two bullets to explode the shadow. He felt a twinge of disappointment as he watched the shadow essence erupt. That had been too easy, anticlimactic.

He kept going.

Again, one of those feminine shadows appeared, and it screamed at him. This time, he didn't wait for it to attack. The drops of blood that were now splattered along his chest were starting to fuel his battle lust. He shuddered as it screamed a second, time, and then fired at it. When it didn't go down, Magatsu Izanagi's Vorpal Blade finished the job.

Unexpectedly, a second shadow came out at him from behind the first. He didn't even have time to see what kind of a shadow it was, but dispatched it instantly with a swing of Magatsu Izanagi's blade. He was hungry to hurt something. Himself, the shadow, anyone else, it didn't' matter. He needed more feelings, feelings like the ones he got when he was fighting. There was pain when he was hurt, anger, frustration, and that swell of triumph when he managed to get one up on the enemy. No matter how the battle went, there was always that real, tangible, memorable surge of…of something, of anything that made him believe he was genuinely alive.

The maze kept going, and going, but Adachi had lost interest in where it was leading. He was focusing on the shadows, mowing them down moment by moment as he passed through them towards whatever the end of this nightmare was going to be. He didn't care about the eyes on the walls anymore. He could look at them now, could see the hatred and the fear in them, and it felt good the way that they glared. They loathed him, despised him, just the way he loathed and despised himself. He needed to prove to them, to himself, that he was everything they saw in him. He was a monster. They had come out of his nightmares, and he had come out of theirs.

As he swung and shot his way through the throng of shadows, they began to retreat from him, to lurch back or to seek shelter against the walls. There was nowhere for them to hide. He listened to them screaming, in terror this time, as he found them and destroyed them, one by one. Every time they got a hit in, or managed to wound him, he'd laugh in their faces. He was worthless, he wasn't anything. There was nothing that they could do to him that he couldn't already do to himself. The blows didn't even hurt anymore, they just bled, and bled horribly, until he found that the hand he reached up to brush his sweaty hair away from his face was stained with his own blood.

Then, it happened. Somehow, out of the roiling, stained depths of what had become Adachi's mind, Minako's face appeared, the peaceful way it had looked when she'd curled up against him and fallen asleep. He remembered the way she'd kissed him right below the eyes, that night when he'd lost control of himself in the living room. The anger started to die down as he focused on her face. He took a deep, shaking breath, and then stared at his hands. They were horrible. He tried to rub out the blood on the sides of his pant legs. The wounds began to throb in time with the beating of his heart.

She'd said she wanted to be with him. He wouldn't be able to hear that again until he got out of here. Then what? Then she'd see what he'd done to himself, and the way he had gone after those shadows, and she'd be frightened. She'd be frightened of him, and he couldn't stand that idea. He needed to be the person she imagined him being. He needed to be in control. He needed to show her that he could be somebody worth caring about.

"No," he muttered, shaking his head and biting down hard on his lip. "No, I'm not…"

"Whoa," said a voice, from somewhere in front of him. Adachi looked up sharply. The voice sounded like his own.

Standing just a few feet in front of him was…himself. He was wearing the same clothes, the same red tie, and had the same stupid, taunting sneer on his face that Adachi recognized so well from his own. The eyes were yellow, but…he didn't care. It didn't matter, it didn't mean anything.

"You finally made it," said himself. "I was starting to wonder if you'd ever show up."

Adachi narrowed his own eyes, and clutched harder at his gun. "You," he muttered.

"No," laughed himself. "You, actually. Or, have you forgotten? I'm a part of you, the part of you that you wish you could ignore. It doesn't matter what that girl says, you know. I'm always here. She can't just close her eyes and make me go away. I'm not going anywhere. Neither are you."

Suddenly, all the eyes on the walls shut in the same instant, and a blaze of light illuminated Adachi's other self in a blindingly vicious glow.

"See?" he said, laughing. "It doesn't do any good! I'm still here! Face up to it, Tohru. You're me, no matter how many cute little tricks you pull for that kid. You can't escape me. You wouldn't want to if you could. I I define you. I make you stronger. Come on, let's show them all how little it all means. After everything they've done to us, it's time we gave something back, don't you think?

"Leave me alone," snarled Adachi. "I never wanted this, I never wanted you!"

"Oh, you didn't?" asked his other self. "Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm pretty sure this is everything you wanted. You wanted to prove to yourself and to everyone else that you really do suck. You're a piece of shit, Tohru. You know why you wanted so badly to prove that to yourself? So you wouldn't have to try anymore. You wanted to know so it wouldn't hurt as much when they spat at you, or shouted at you, or walked away from you. You wanted them to be right all along, because then you wouldn't have to care about it anymore. If you reject me first, then they can't hurt you when they reject me. Oh, wait, sorry. I mean you. I mean when they reject you. Then again, it really is the same thing. Semantics…who needs them?"

Adachi didn't say anything. He couldn't. The exquisite rage was building up inside his chest and in his throat. He knew that Magatsu Izanagi could feel it, was feeding off of it. He was going to kill this guy no matter what it did or didn't do. He would kill him for everything he'd done and everything he hadn't bothered to do. He would kill him for what he'd become. He would kill him for what he'd forced himself to lose.

Turning his head, he looked for his persona, to command it to attack.

Magatsu Izanagi wasn't there. "What…?" asked Adachi.

His other self laughed. "Aww, did your persona leave you?" he taunted him. "Just like everybody else, huh? You can't even hold on to yourself for long enough to get anything done. You don't get it, do you? You don't have anything without me. Not your persona, not your power, not your strength…I gave you all of that. You'll figure it out someday. That dumbass girl's gonna figure it out too. Why not show her the kind of man you really are? You don't have to wait for her to want you. We take what we want. I'll have her whenever I feel like it, and when I'm bored with her, I can just…well, but you know what to do with people, don't you? The same thing they always do to you. You just use them, and throw them away. It's easy, and meaningless. I'll do the same thing to that girl…and so will you."

An inhuman sound ripped its way out of Adachi's throat. He could feel the gun still in his hands, as the sweat poured down the back of his neck, and the anger started to cloud his vision so much that his other self was a blurry picture in front of him. He didn't need a persona, he'd take this guy out without Magatsu Izanagi's help. He needed this, craved it. He wanted to watch himself burn.

There was nothing in the world, thought Adachi, that he hated more than himself.


	24. Twenty Three - December 26

**Author's Note: **...you may want a box of tissues for the next couple of updates. Not a sermon, just a thought.

**Three – December 26**

As soon as work was over for the day, Minako headed straight for the shopping district. She wanted to be waiting there, just like she'd promised, when Tohru came out of the Velvet Room. It would be a little awkward looking, she realized, if she just stood there waiting in front of the Velvet Room door, which no one would be able to see. It would look suspiciously like she was just loitering around, looking for trouble, and considering how many "suspicious person" calls she answered on a day to day basis, it was likely that some bored old lady would call into the police station and report her. Dojima wasn't in a very good mood today, and she'd made enough conversational flubs already. She didn't need to have him haul her back into the station just to shout at her for making more trouble than she needed to.

Instead of waiting outside the Velvet Room, therefore, Minako stood inside Old Lady Shiroku's store, and pretended to browse things. The owner didn't mind her being there. Old Lady Shiroku was always very patient with her customers, especially with Minako, whom she seemed to have decided was blind, and therefore also stupid, and thus completely incapable of causing any real problems. Lots of people, thought Minako bitterly, made judgments like that about her. Then again, in cases like this, it ended up working to her benefit. Besides, she reflected, it really made more sense, coming from Shiroku. After all, as people got older, they lost their sight and their sense, so the idea of those two things going together seemed less irrational and mean coming from someone of Shiroku's age.

As she pawed through the various healing and medicinal supplements, Minako listened to the ticking of the clock. She wished that she and Tohru had set some sort of time, or plan. Everything had been eerily blissful yesterday, and they'd never really felt the need to think of things in practical terms. Now that she was back in the daily grind, so many things seemed like good ideas that hadn't occurred to her then.

Suddenly, she heard familiar voices coming from the street, and instinctively, Minako ducked farther into the store, where she couldn't be easily seen. It sounded like Yosuke and Teddie, on their way either to or from Junes.

"…gonna get me in trouble!" Yosuke was saying. Minako could picture the exasperated look on his face as he harangued Teddie about what was, no doubt, another mishap, inappropriate flirtation, or theft. "Honestly, I don't know why we don't just fire you. You're lazy, you're useless, you break all the rules, and you get on everybody's damn nerves!"

Wow, thought Minako. Yosuke was really working himself up this time. She'd heard this argument many times before, of course, but it sounded like today it was a pretty bad one.

"But Yosuke," whined Teddie. "You can't fire me…I'm adorable! All the ladies come to see me, and to pet my soft fur…I'm too cute to fire! I'm good for business!"

Minako snorted to hide a laugh. She could picture him twinkling up into Yosuke's outraged face.

"You're…you're not….ugh." Yosuke gave up with a sigh. "Yeah, well…I don't get why, but you're right, business has gotten better since you showed up. If only you could quit eating all the merchandise…"

In a few more moments, the sounds of their voices and steps disappeared, and Minako knew she was alone.

"Boy trouble, dearie?" asked Old Lady Shiroku. Minako almost jumped. She'd forgotten that the owner was even here.

"Um…no," she began, "No, it's not…um…nothing like that."

Old Lady Shiroku hummed softly to herself, as she moved off towards the shelves in the back of the store. "Oh, don't you mind me," she reassured Minako. "I won't tell him you're here. Why, when I was a girl, I had admirers too…too many to count, in fact! I know it's hard to believe now…"

As Old Lady Shiroku continued to mumble nostalgically to herself, Minako felt a twinge of regret that the situation wasn't that simple. It wasn't that Yosuke was an admirer, or that she was hiding from him, it was just that…

It was just that she didn't want him to know what she was up to. For some strange reason, she felt like a criminal herself, just because she was going to see Tohru. Why should she feel guilty about that? After all, most of the rest of the team went to see him every day, for business in the Velvet Room. Nanako visited as often as she could, partially because she wanted to look at the compendium, but also because she was worried that he'd just get lonely. Why was it okay for Nanako to do that, and not for Minako?

Even as she asked herself the question, though, Minako knew the answer. It wasn't the fact that she went to see him that she was ashamed of. It was the fact that she cared about him, and cared about him in a very different way from the way that Nanako cared. Nanako felt mostly sorry for Tohru, but Minako…Minako felt something else, something that her brain was still shying actively away from identifying.

It would hurt Yosuke, Minako knew, if he found out that she cared about Tohru. It would hurt him so badly that he might never speak to her again, and it was that selfish terror that made Minako want to hide behind boxes when she heard Yosuke, or any of the investigation team coming by.

Maybe, she thought to herself, this wasn't really a good idea. She wasn't either ready or willing to give up the new friends she'd made or the old ones she'd rediscovered, just because she had a crush on an unpopular man. If she had to sacrifice all those bonds she'd made just to be with Tohru, then it definitely couldn't be worth it.

Still, every time his name came into her inner monologue, she got a little shivery feeling of pleasant anticipation. She was definitely drawn to him, more now than she'd been even six months before. The infatuation wasn't getting better, it was getting worse. It didn't help that he cared for her too, cared for her so much that he'd broken down more than once just for the chance to be with her. She liked that vulnerable side of him, liked the unexpectedly charming humanity that he saved just for her. She couldn't just let it go and give it up because she was afraid of being looked down on by her friends.

The thoughts going through Minako's head had become so contradictory and oxymoronic that they were beginning to just make her annoyed and impatient. Hurriedly, she gathered up several healing items at random from the store, paid for them, and then charged back over to the Velvet Room door. Tohru still wasn't there. Maybe he couldn't get out on his own. Maybe he was stuck in there waiting for Nanako to let him out so that he could come and see Minako to keep their promise.

Minako leaned one shoulder restlessly against the Velvet Room door, and let out a long, agitated sigh. Then, her arm gave way, and so, amazingly, did the door itself. Minako fell through with a little shriek of protest.

She landed on her side on the floor, and the bag of Shiroku purchases tumbled out of her hands. She heard a bottle of peach seeds crash against the ground, and then the sound of several small round objects rolling crazily around the room.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room," murmured Igor, in what genuinely sounded like surprise.

"What?" managed Minako. Pushing herself to her feet, she dazedly dusted herself off. "Igor?" she asked. "Am I…are we really in the Velvet Room?"

"Ah," replied Igor. "Am I to understand that this was not an intentional visit? Then it seems that you, too, have found that your powers are beginning to re-awaken. Fascinating. Truly, you are one of the most interesting guests that I have ever had the privilege to host in this Velvet Room."

Minako took a moment to wrap her head around that. "Me…too?" she asked. "Then, someone else has been here? Someone else who doesn't have powers?" He must, she realized, be talking about Yu. The idea that Yu had found his way back into the Velvet Room excited her. Maybe, just maybe, he was getting better! Yosuke and the others would be so excited! She couldn't wait to see them and ask them about it.

Only after that thought had finished forming did she realize that this all meant for her. "Igor," she murmured. "Did you say that my powers are beginning to re-awaken?"

"Hmm…" intoned Igor. "So it does appear…"

**Meanwhile, in Adachi's nightmare room…**

Adachi was not facing favorable odds, and his wounds were increasing as he threw everything he had into the battle against the other side of himself.

Magatsu Izanagi had abandoned him, but his presence wasn't completely unfelt. While Adachi had only his weapon to defend with, his shadow counterpart seemed to have all the powers that Magatsu Izanagi possessed. For the fourth or fifth time, Adachi dodged out of the way, just in time to avoid a bolt of lightning that his shadow self summoned with just a snap of his two fingers.

"Boring…" muttered Adachi's shadow self. "Jeez, give me a break…either die already, or hit me with your best shot. Don't tell me this is all you've got…I know you better than that."

"Again, Adachi aimed and fired at his shadow self's head, and again, the bullet stopped in mid-air and fell just short of the shadow, bouncing harmlessly and tauntingly off the ground in front of them both.

"Tch," muttered shadow Adachi. "I've told you…you can't hit me with that! You don't have a persona. You don't have your powers. That little toy of yours isn't gonna hurt me!"

"Then what the hell am I supposed to do?" snarled Adachi.

"Yeah…" Shadow Adachi seemed to think about that for a moment. "Actually, when you put it that way, I guess your only option really is to die."

Suddenly, shadow Adachi raised one hand, and Magatsu Izanagi's vorpal blade appeared in it. "We're all part of you," he said. "Or maybe you're part of us. It's all the same thing, really, except that now, we're going to win, and there isn't going to be a 'you' anymore. 'You' won't exist. It'll just be us, all the parts of you that you don't want to face. Just imagine what we're gonna do to that pretty girl of yours…I get little chills just thinking about it."

Adachi gritted his teeth against the terrible visions of what he could, and would do to Minako if he let himself have the chance. Again, he fired the gun, and again, nothing happened. Dropping the gun, he lunged forward at his shadow self, reaching for the throat, hoping that his hands might be able to do what his weapon couldn't.

Almost lazily, shadow Adachi stabbed forward with the vorpal blade, and ran it straight through Adachi's oncoming torso.

At first, there wasn't any pain. Adachi was full of so much rage and panic that maybe he wasn't ready to feel it. Slowly, though, as he collapsed on to the ground, the searing feeling in his guts began to wrench at him, and he forced himself to breath in and out, while he stared down at the puddle of blood that was now pooling on his clothes and around where he'd fallen.

"Heh," remarked shadow Adachi, "hey, that was kind of fun. It's a shame, though…maybe if you weren't such a dumbass, we could have kept going for a little longer. Seriously? Who runs into a sword? Well, so long, loser."

Adachi watched through bleary, clouding eyes as his shadow self apparently disappeared into the wall. He opened his mouth to call out to it, but no words came out. Instead, he just ended up coughing up more blood. Jeez, he thought, with remarkable clarity. How was there so much goddamn blood? Where was it all coming from? He had to be dead already. There was no way he could bleed this much and not be dead. How was this happening?

Then, he heard Minako's voice calling to him as feminine footsteps came rushing towards him across the landscape of his nightmares. Turning his head slightly, he thought he saw her, dressed for work and running-full tilt in his direction.

"Tohru?" she was shouting. "Tohru, where are you? I thought I heard you, but…it didn't sound right. Tohru? Answer me!"

Right, thought Adachi, letting his head drop back against the ground. So, he decided, he really was dead. How else was he hearing Minako's voice in this place? After all, she couldn't even get into the Velvet Room. Was it possible that there really was a heaven, and that he was going there? That would be…no, way too good to be true, and kind of weird. No, he was probably just hallucinating.

"Great," he muttered aloud, although it came out as more of a croak than anything else. "So it was a suicide mission after all…in a lot of ways." For some reason, the terrible irony of that made him laugh. The laugh hurt, and turned into a cough, and then a choke. It was hard to keep himself breathing for a moment, and as soon as he'd managed to force his lungs to work again, he felt Minako's cool hands against his face.

"Oh my god," she whispered.

"Sorry," he managed hoarsely. "Hey, though…you have to give me…points for trying. Pretty…damn heroic, if you ask me. Ugh." Talking was too painful. Things were already starting to get fuzzier and darker all around him.

"There's so much blood," Minako was saying distractedly. Suddenly, she ripped open what was left of his shirt, and pressed her hands hard against his bare chest where the wound was bleeding out.

"Whoa," muttered Adachi, forcing a sputtering laugh. "You want me pretty bad, huh? I knew it. I knew it, the hero thing, it…really turns you on. Wish I'd tried this a little…ugh, sooner."

"That's right," said Minako. "Make offensive jokes. Just keep talking, okay? I'm going to call a healer. I'll call Yukari. Oh!" She started suddenly, as though remembering something. "The bag…I left it in the Velvet Room. I'll be right back. Don't' move, Tohru. Don't move."

Her hands lifted off of him for a moment, and without realizing he was doing it, Tohru reached out and caught hold of her wrist as she started to step away from him.

"Hey, blind girl," he said. "Stick around, okay? I'm…fucking dying."

"No, you aren't," insisted Minako harshly. "I told you, I'm getting you some medicine, or a healer…hopefully both! I'm going to fix this, I…"

"Yeah, sure," mumbled Adachi. "You know what? Good luck with that."


	25. Twenty Four - December 26

**Author's Note: **So, here's where plot gets complicated. Stay with me, this is going to be an exciting ride to the finish line. If you are reading both stories, find something to bite down on, because a lot of things are going to happen very fast. Although, at least when it comes to **Piecekeeping**, there's a brief introspective lull before things really hit the fan.

WARNING: As you know, if you've read my stories before, I do not promise or vouch for the survival of ANY of these characters. I like to kill people off, it's this problem that I have. Just keep that in the back of your mind as we move forward with this chapter…I don't want you to tell me later that I never warned you.

Thanks very much to **SuperNova23** for his brilliant fact-checking, and to **Meia42** for his iron-clad encouragement. I have the best readers. It's true. You all are, in fact, the best readers.

Oh! Speaking of awesome people, I have had the privilege yet again to write a story with **SuperNova23**! It's called **Snowfall**, and he does great work, so please do go check it out, if you have the time! You can find it on my profile page.

**Twenty Four – December 26**

Minako was doing the best she could not to panic. It didn't help that she couldn't see how bad Tohru's injuries were. It was probably even worse, she knew, than she was trying not to imagine. There was definitely a lot of blood. Her hands were now covered in it, from trying to staunch the wound. She was standing in it, too…it was everywhere. All of the healing items she'd bought were still rolling around on the floor in the Velvet Room, and judging by all the blood, she didn't have time to run back and search for them. Desperately, she ripped off her jacket and tried tying it around the wound. It wasn't long enough; there wasn't enough fabric, and every extra second that it took her searching fingers to find the place where the gash began was another second that Tohru was losing.

"Oh, god," she muttered again. "How did I let this happen? What was I thinking?"

"That's…a rhetorical question, right?" mumbled Tohru weakly. "Because I've never been great at… figuring out what women are thinking. Actually…who is?"

"Shut up," said Minako. "Talking is probably only making it worse…" She bit her lip, trying to stifle the rising urge to throw up from sheer terror at the idea that there was nothing, absolutely nothing that she could do to stop this. That couldn't be right, that wasn't possible. There had to be something. "I should never have asked you to do this," she whispered. "You were right, it was too much, and it wasn't fair. I'm…I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Tohru, I'm sorry…I didn't think…"

"Hey." His fingers brushed against her face. She could feel the blood staining her cheek as he touched her, but she didn't care. "Look, there are…worse things than having a girl…think you're better than you are. It was nice. Sucks that…you were wrong about me, but…it was nice. Thanks. Guess in the end, I…kinda let you down. Oh well…I figured." He started coughing again, and little flecks of blood spattered against Minako's cheek. "Whoa…okay, that was gross…" he managed, with a weak little laugh. "Sorry."

"You didn't let me down," insisted Minako, shaking her head fiercely as she leaned into his feebly outstretched hand. "You didn't. There was nothing you could have done. You were completely defenseless, in here alone. No one should ever have to face themselves alone." Her mind was raging at itself, screaming at her that she'd killed him, that she'd done this to him because she was so desperate for him to prove to her that he could be her knight in shining armor after all. She'd been so sure that it would make them both so happy if he could only prove that he wasn't the monster from those media nightmares. Instead, she'd essentially charmed him into rushing headlong into his death.

In the end, she realized, she'd been no different from all those horrible, warped and twisted images of women that Tohru had running around in his head. She'd done exactly what those women he was scared of would have done to him. Despite everything, despite all of her best intentions, she'd betrayed him at the last.

Tears started to fall from Minako's eyes, and for once she didn't try to stifle them or brush them away. In her weakened state, without her powers, there was nothing else she could do. At least she could cry for him. "I'm so sorry," she sniffled again, hoping that maybe the tears and the words together would help Tohru understand how much she meant it, and how much he'd almost been able to mean to her. "I wanted…"

"Hey…don't cry," Tohru muttered. "Knock it off…"

"I know," sobbed Minako. "I know, I'm ugly when I cry."

"Tch," Minako could tell that Tohru's breathing was getting more and more strained. Just spitting out that last little sound had been hard for him. "Who the hell told you that?"

Despite herself, Minako choked out a laugh. "You did," she reminded him.

"Yeah, well…" he sighed. "I'm a dumbass…don't you know that by now? You're not fucking ugly…you're beautiful. You're…insanely beautiful…"

Then, his voice shuddered a little, and Minako had to grab at his hand as it fell away from her face. She couldn't hear his rasping breaths anymore, and when she reached out and frantically pressed her hand back to his chest, there was no more rise and fall.

"Tohru?" she called, but it came out as more of an inaudible gasp. "We promised I'd be waiting for you when you came back out…so you have to come out! You have to…"

Minako started to cry in earnest. It didn't matter anymore. The pain in her chest was too terrible, as though she was the one who'd been run through. The sobs began to worsen, until the tears were streaming down her face in torrents. The panic and the sorrow were rapidly beginning to turn into rage, rage at her uselessness, and at her complete inability to save a man whom she'd talked into harm's way by promising him that she could care for him if only he could be what she wanted him to.

"But I wasn't wrong," she murmured, uncertain if it was him she had to reassure, or herself. "I wasn't wrong about you. You could have been a hero, Tohru…you were my hero. I still believe in you."

Even as the tears continued to run down her cheeks, re-wetting each tearstain as it had the audacity to dry, Minako heard the voice.

_I am thou. Thou art I. _

"Leave me alone," she sobbed.

_From your tortured soul, I come to bring you peace. _

"Stop it," mumbled Minako. "Not right now. Not right now, it's not fair!" It was torture, hearing these voices and imagining how things might have been if only the voices had been real, if only they'd really meant something, if only they'd been able to give her that power that she needed to protect him from what he'd done to himself.

_Thou hast re-discovered the true self, the essence of the person you have and will become._

Even as Minako did her best to force out the torturously memorable voice, she heard something that she recognized. The words were those that she'd said herself, almost a year before. They were the same words that she'd once heard in the last moments before she'd finally re-sealed Nyx, and had watched the beautiful colors of her world shut themselves away from her forever. Well, no, she corrected herself. Not exactly the same words…but still, they came from inside her, from a place that she'd been trying not to let herself completely lose.

_Though I have gone, I have not forgotten. Though I have gone, you have not forgotten me. _

_I am come. You are not alone. _

"No," murmured Minako. "No, no one should be alone…"

Then, from the depths of what was left of Minako's soul, something burst forth. The breath caught in her lungs and strained in her chest, as light flooded back through the portals of her soaking eyes. The world around her swam into horrible view, and she saw Tohru, now for the third time, lying on the floor, surrounded by pools of his own blood, with her sweater wrapped ridiculously around the hole that had been opened up in his chest. His eyes and mouth were both slightly open, and he was sickeningly still.

Yet, somehow, it wasn't his battered and stained form that got Minako's attention. The one thing that could have drawn her eye was now standing behind him, regarding her with a calm and unyielding stare that filled up her heart and soul with something that she didn't know she'd still been able to feel.

It was a mechanical form, neither man nor woman, but somehow both of them and all of them at the same time. One of its hands was clutched against its chest, while a large metal spike protruded from someplace just behind it's back. Every inch of it radiated an aura of confidence and peace, enough to quell even Minako's hastily beating heart.

"Messiah," she whispered. "Salvation."

The persona nodded once, and closed its eyes. Almost instinctively, Minako closed hers, as well. Something blinding and brilliant happened just in front of her eyelids, and when she hazarded to open them again, she saw Tohru's hand twitch, as he sucked a long, shaking breath back in through afflicted lungs.

"What…?" he muttered. "What happened?"

Minako turned to look for her persona, but it was gone. At least…she couldn't see it, anymore. She didn't have to. Now, for the first time in almost a year, she could feel it settled just inside her soul, filling her with safety, security, and the knowledge, so long lost, of who she really was. Junpei was right about her all along. Tohru was right about her, too. She was here to save them from themselves, from anything that threatened them or the fragile but magical peace that she'd worked so hard to create. That was her fate, her destiny, as much now as it had been when she'd first sacrificed herself for Nyx. She would never give that up. She couldn't. It was a part of her being.

"I…I saved you," she told Tohru, somewhat needlessly.

Tohru got slowly to his feet, and then looked down at the blood that was covering his clothes. The wounds, Minako realized, had healed and closed up, but the blood and sweat from that recent battle were still there.

"Oh…" he mumbled. "Uh, good. Because…this looks pretty damn bad…"

He started to walk over to her, and all of the tranquil majesty that Minako had become suddenly evaporated and gave way to exuberant humanity again. She threw herself into his arms, winding her own tightly around his neck and pressing him as close to her as she could. She wanted to feel his heart beating against hers, to feel how alive he was.

"Nice to see you, too," said Tohru, laughing.

Yes, thought Minako, as that penny dropped. She could see him. She could see everything, and the vision hadn't flickered, or wavered, or disappeared. This wasn't like those other times, when she'd been granted a cruel glimpse of the world, only to have it taken away from her again a moment later. She could see again. She could really see.

Shoving herself back from Tohru, she took a deep breath, and stared at him for several seconds, letting herself process all of the little visual pieces that she'd gotten through those two brief pictures of him she'd seen before. The intensity and focus of her gaze must have been clear to him, because he suddenly stiffened under her eyes.

"Wait," he said. "You…you're looking at me, aren't you?" She nodded, and for some reason, his face went pale. Holding up one hand to his face, he looked at the blood, then shook his head. "Shit," he mumbled. "Not now…not again." He ran one hand nervously through his hair, and Minako found herself smiling. She'd never seen him make that gesture before. It was endearing. She liked it.

Then, abruptly, he turned away from her. "Please, don't leave," he begged, under his breath. "Don't leave, Minako. I…I'll figure this out, I'll…"

There was that same note of panic in his voice that she'd heard in it when they'd listened together to that horrible place in the TV world. He sounded now just like he had when, in his younger days, he'd begged Hinata to stop crying.

"We can make this work," he said, as though he already knew that there was no point in meaning it.

Minako came up behind him, and wrapped both arms around his waist, resting her head against his back and closing her eyes.

"I'm not going anywhere," she assured him.

He turned around slowly to her, swallowing hard against something that he seemed to be trying to figure out how to say. Minako leaned in and kissed him softly. She felt his breath catch as he hastened to return the kiss.

"I had almost forgotten," remarked Minako, breaking away after a moment, "how much easier it is to do that when I can actually see where I'm going…"

Tohru laughed incredulously. "What," he said, "You mean, you could be better at that? I don't know, you were pretty good before…I can't wait to see where this goes."

She took his hand, and they began to walk together back through the world of his nightmares. Minako could see the eyes on the walls now, and the terrible silhouettes that passed through and behind things, raising the hackles on the back of her neck. There were screams, too, inhumanly human screams. How had she missed them the first time? She must have been too preoccupied with Tohru to be paying attention to anything else.

Abruptly, Tohru stopped, and she turned around to see him staring uncertainly at the eyes on the walls.

"It's not over," he muttered. "Okay, I'm not dead, but…I lost. I couldn't do it, I couldn't be the guy you wanted, I couldn't face up to it, in the end."

Minako shook her head, and squeezed his hand. "No," she corrected him, "You couldn't do it alone. Next time, you won't have to."

**Author's Note: **So…all that stuff I said in the Author's Note at the top of the page, about killing characters off?

…Just kidding. Got you!

Stay tuned for more of this story…because there are still so many problems that have to be resolved.

In the meantime, though, I'm gonna work on **Piecekeeping**. Updates over the next few days will be sporadic and infrequent, cause Dag's visiting for the week, but I''ll probably fit a little something in.


	26. Twenty Five - December 26

**Author's Note: **I'm sorry about the long delay in updating this story. It's been a very, very busy week for me, and I'm afraid that it is only going to get busier.

I think that I am going to take a one week hiatus from updating this story. I need to take a break, do some re-plotting, refresh my ideas, and come back in a week, ready to look at this story again through newly rested eyes! Trust me, it won't be a very long break, but I think it'll be a better story for it.

In the meantime, I'm planning to write a couple of short stories in response to some challenges that my favorite readers have sent me. Hopefully those will be fun to read in the week's interim. Stay tuned, and thank you for your patience!

**Twenty Five – December 26**

Adachi was numb. Not physically numb, but emotionally numb. Physically, he knew that he should have been in terrible pain, judging from the horrible, bloody mess that his clothes and skin had become. The closer he and Minako got to the entrance to his nightmares, the more flashes of memory he managed to recall of the battle he'd stupidly tried to rage against the other side of himself. He remembered the rage and the powerful hunger that came with the pain, the way those shadows had screamed at him, and the thrills that had shot through him when he'd finally realized that he was going to have to watch himself die. There had been relief, there, amazingly welcome relief, but also terror as the instinct for self preservation had forced itself up through the loathing and tried to make itself heard just long enough to save his life. He remembered all of these things, but he couldn't really feel them. They were distant sort of nostalgic things, but nothing that was real. It was like they had happened to or been felt by someone else, even though he knew that didn't make sense.

He couldn't get much farther than that. His nerves and feelings, decided, must be so taxed from such a rollercoaster of unexpected self-torture that they were beginning to shut down. This time, though, it wasn't the emptiness of knowing that none of it mattered, and it wasn't the meaninglessness of having nothing to look forward to.

This time, Adachi was just tired. He was emotionally exhausted. Something had broken in his mind, and he felt disconnected, disjointed, as though certain circuits and emotional triggers were no longer attached in the right places. He felt listless and lost, but oddly calm, unable to access the parts of him that would have reacted in any other way.

"Tohru?" asked Minako, as she led him by the hand out through the door that went back into the Velvet Room. "You're so quiet…does it still hurt?"

Adachi just shook his head. "Uh,no, it's…it's fine. I'm fine." That, of course, wasn't true. He wasn't fine. He didn't feel like himself at all, which made sense, since one piece of himself had essentially just tried and failed to murder another piece, leaving him…where, exactly? What was the next step, after something like that? He felt stranded, as though he'd lost something, but he wasn't sure quite what it was. He was too tired to try to find it. All he wanted right now was to let Minako be in charge, for once. He wanted to leave himself alone for a few moments in the quiet of the abandoned battlefield that his psyche had become.

"Thank goodness," murmured Minako. Then, just as they stepped into the Velvet Room together, Adachi saw Minako's knees buckle. He didn't quite manage to catch her, this time, as she swayed dangerously, and then collapsed into a heap on the Velvet Room floor, right in front of Igor's chair.

Igor didn't even have the good graces to look surprised.

"Hey!" Adachi hurriedly knelt down beside her. "Hey, what's going on? Come on, blind girl, this'd be a bad time for you to crap out on me. I'm the one who got cut to pieces, right? So what's your excuse?"

Minako smiled a very faint little smile. "You can't call me that anymore," she reminded him, almost dreamily, closing her eyes and laying her head back against the floor. "I'm not blind…you'll have to think of a new nickname…"

"Don't worry, I'm good at those. It's kind of a skill," he retorted. "Here." He propped his arm under hers, throwing the other arm around her waist to help her back to her feet. Minako, however, didn't even try.

"I can't," she told him. "Please, Tohru, I'm so tired…"

"What are you so tired for?" he asked. "You're not the one who just got stabbed in the chest."

"Yeah," mumbled Minako. "I know. You're welcome."

Something in the back of Adachi's mind, maybe something that he'd picked up in his training or at the police academy was telling him that he had to keep her talking. If she went to sleep and blacked out on him, it might be too late. He had to keep provoking her long enough to force her to stay conscious.

"It's all right," said Igor's voice. "The effort of using her persona again has drained her of her strength. It is safe here; no shadows are welcome in this place. Let her sleep."

All of Adachi's instincts were crying out against that idea, but he could already tell by the change in Minako's breathing that he'd lost his opportunity to try and keep her awake. She lay there calmly, with her chest rising and falling very slightly, and Adachi was struck, not for the first time, with how dangerously innocent and vulnerable she was willing to let herself be around him. The memory of what his shadow self had said to him in the Velvet Room came rushing back, and the bile began to rise in Adachi's throat as he tried not to think about the horrible things that he knew part of him still wanted to do to her, just for being naïve and trusting enough to give him that opportunity.

"It is most impressive," continued Igor, through and around Adachi's inner monologue, "that our guest has managed such a feat. After having given up one half of her soul, she has found the strength to awaken one last persona, one that continues to reside in the piece of her that was not taken by the Seal. It was her desire to save you that reawakened her knowledge of her true purpose, that purpose allowed Messiah to be reborn."

Adachi just shook his head. None of that made a lot of sense to him. All of this crap about reawakening the true self sounded like something those idiot kids that Narukami ran with would say. There was nothing tangible about it, like so much of the shit that came out of Igor's mouth. Instead, Adachi asked the one question that seemed really important to him at the moment.

"What's wrong with her?" he demanded. "Why'd she pass out like that?"

"Ah," intoned Igor. "I'm afraid that her soul is still weak. As only half of what her soul once was remains available to her, her persona has only half the power that it used to have, and there is very little strength for it to draw upon. Every use of her power is taxing to her, intensely taxing. It might take days for her recover from a spell as powerful as the one she risked to bring you back."

"So…I did this," muttered Adachi. "I hurt her, huh?"

Suddenly, there was something sharper and more shrewd in Igor's stare. Adachi sat back involuntarily as Igor's eyes bore straight into him.

"Yes," murmured Igor, after a moment's apparently consideration. "It is, after all, what you wanted."

"No!" Adachi almost shouted that. "Shit, I never-!"

"Ah, but you did," insisted Igor. "At least, the part of you that remained behind had every desire to damage this girl."

Igor turned his head and gazed significantly at the entrance to the nightmare room. Adachi followed his gaze, and found himself biting his lip in frustration as he stared at the door.

"So," he muttered. "I'm still in there, huh? I'm still in there, waiting for me to come back. Is that it?"

"Yes," agreed Igor, nodding. "You do feel it, do you not? The weakness, the confusion…it stems from the loss of one part of yourself. Without it, you can never be whole."

Adachi couldn't lie to himself. He'd known that already, somehow. He'd realized it the moment that his shadow self had left, and had taken with it his persona and an intrinsic part of who he, Tohru Adachi, really was. The emotional exhaustion that he felt now, and the struggle to put the pieces together came from that, somehow.

Despite knowing all those things, he fought it. What else, he wondered, could he do? "I don't have to be that guy," he whispered, more to himself than to Igor. "I don't need those parts of me…I could be worth something without them."Looking down at Minako's sleeping face, he wondered if he could be worth something to her, without them. Wasn't that, after all, what she'd asked him to do? Hadn't she wanted him to find out what he could be if he could get rid of the other part of himself? That was the whole point in his coming here, and if he had to go back and kill that thing again, then he'd find a way to do it.

Slowly, Igor just shook his head, and gave Adachi a variant of his usual disappointed look. "It is impossible," Igor informed him. "That shadow is a part of who you are. You are not yourself without it."

"No," growled Adachi, unwilling to accept it. "Look, I used to be somebody else, I used to be a better guy. I used to…"

He stopped. The ugly truth, he realized, was that he couldn't remember what he'd used to be. That didn't matter anymore. What mattered now was who he was.

"And," added Igor, as though he'd interrupted the flow of Adachi's thoughts, "who you may become."

"She could love me like this," insisted Adachi, desperately."I…I know she could. I could show her that I'm…"

"Like this," returned Igor, "there is no 'you' at all."

There was a long silence, during which both of them, apparently, watched as Minako slept blissfully away.

"So," asked Adachi eventually. "What's next? What am I supposed to do now?"

By way of an answer, Igor just looked across the room at the door.

"Yeah," sighed Adachi. "I figured it'd be something like that."

**Some time later, still in the Velvet Room…**

Minako opened her eyes, and saw the world.

The colors and shapes were dazzling and exciting…and they almost instantly gave her a headache. A sharp pain in her right temple reminded her abruptly that it had been a very long time since her mind had been used to handling the visual spectrum of anything and everything that the big bold world had to offer. It was difficult to figure out what to look at first, and her eyes tried to drink in everything, she started to get dizzy from the intensity of it all. Why, she wondered, hadn't she felt like this before? Maybe, now that she was out of danger, now that the fight or flight response had worn away, she was really starting to feel the aftermath of everything that had happened.

"Tohru?" she asked, peering around through the dizzy, shiny feelings, and the pain in her head. She heard his footsteps coming closer to her, and then she found him, walking over towards her from the direction of the nightmare doors.

"Oh, you're awake," he said. "How's your head?"

Minako frowned. "It hurts," she admitted.

"Yeah…" Tohru sighed. "Igor figured it would. Sorry about that."

"What were you doing?" she asked him. "You're not going back in there, are you?"

"Hey," he told her, giving her a little half-smile, "That's why we're here, right? Told you' I'd go in there and face myself…so, I guess I've gotta be an honest man about it. After all, we did promise."

"I thought you were proud of being a dishonest man," Minako reminded him. She was worried. Something about him didn't seem right. He was…off, somehow, although she couldn't quite decide what had given her that impression.

"Yeah, well," laughed Tohru, "I, uh…I don't really know what I am, right now."

He sounded so sad, and sort of confused. Instinctively, Minako stood up and went to him. "We'll go together," she assured him.

"You're tired," he told her. "Look, you can barely stand up straight. Don't be stupid, okay? You wore yourself out the last time you had to save my ass. Let me handle this one."

Minako just shook her head. Tohru sighed, and then put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. She closed her eyes, but felt strange. There was nothing real in the way he was holding her, now, nothing like the passion of the times she'd spent with him when he'd been so eager to touch her or to have her close to him, so eager that sometimes it had almost frightened her.

"I'm sorry," he told her.

Minako didn't understand. "For what?" she asked.


	27. Twenty Six - December 26

**Author's Note: **Sound the trumpets! Thus is the triumphant return of Adachi and Minako! I'm going to be alternating the **Piecekeeping** and **Messiah** updates for a few days, still, but today seems to be an Adachi day, since I'm finishing up a story in **Disenchanted – The Complete Cho Yanase Continuity**, and finally posting a chapter to **Messiah** again at the same time!

Thank you so much for everyone who has been reading, it's such a pleasure to see that you're enjoying this stuff. Also, please, please, please go check out **Yuruya-sama**'s deviantart page, as well as **Kira-Tsume**'s deviangart page, as both of them have been kind and wonderful enough to draw some artwork for my stories! They are both super talented…actually, you may know **Kira-Tsume** better as **Gin Nanashi**, the talented author of one of my favorite stories, **Memories of You **(which she co-authored with the wonderful **ReachingoutFES!**).

Okay, enough talk, time for story. Here goes.

**Twenty Six – December 26**

"Wait, Tohru!" called Minako, hurrying after him and grabbing a hold of his wrist as he turned away. "Stop, you're not going in there. I won't let you."

Tohru raised an eyebrow at her. "Yeah? Why's that?" He tried to shake her off, but she didn't budge.

"I told you," she insisted, clinging to him and trying not to think too hard about the pictures in her head of him bleeding out and gasping for a last breath of life on the floor. "You don't have to do this alone."

"Look, Minako," he muttered, running a hand uncomfortably along the back of his neck. "You don't understand. This…this is it. I mean, it's been fun, and all, but…the game's over. I tried for you, I really did, but, I lost."

"_You_ may have lost," interrupted Minako stubbornly, "but _we_ didn't. If you're going back in, then I'm going in with you, and I dare you to try and stop me, Tohru. I'd really like to see you try."

Tohru glared at her, although it was a tired, lackluster glare that had none of his usual defiant spark. It frustrated Minako and frightened her, and she started pulling him forward towards the nightmare door before he had a chance to come up with any more protests.

"Fine," she told him, as they passed through the walls full of unblinking eyes, and rooms full of eerie, shadowy screams that were somehow everywhere and nowhere at the same time. "If you want to end this, then we'll end it, right here and now. Okay? I'm tired of watching you make yourself miserable, it's enough already."

Minako knew before she saw him that she'd find Shadow Adachi exactly where she'd found Tohru dying only hours before. He'd be waiting for them, she knew, because he was a part of Tohru, connected to him, aware of how he was feeling, and so he'd be ready and waiting to deal the finishing blow to Tohru's ego as soon as he had anything close to an opportunity. As Minako and Tohru approached, Shadow Adachi straightened up from where he'd been slumped against the wall, looking bored and listless. It was only when he caught Minako's gaze on him that some malicious light flared up in his yellow eyes.

"No way," he spat at them both. "Seriously? You're gonna let a girl fight your battles for you? You piece of shit, what the hell has she turned you into? You make me sick."

Minako watched Tohru wince, watch him fall back slightly as something about Shadow Adachi's words touched a piece of his soul that he couldn't disconnect from. She frowned, then took a deep breath and went on without him.

"This masochism has to stop," she told Shadow Adachi, as calmly as she could. "You're tearing yourself apart. There's no end to this. You won't get anything out of it."

"Oh, great, now I'm getting a lecture?" drawled Shadow Adachi. "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"I'm someone who cares about you," said Minako, feeling strange and more than a little disturbed by the sensation of speaking to someone in front of her who she could see, out of the corner of her eye, was also watching her from somewhere behind.

Shadow Adachi let out of one his mirthless, derisive laughs. "You care about me, huh? Well, isn't that just great. You're a fucking Good Samaritan, you know that? What did you call your persona? 'Messiah?' You wanna save the whole fucking world? I got news for you; there's not much out there worth saving. You're wasting your time and energy, both on the rest of the world, and on me. Get the hell out while you still can, before I make you wish you'd let me die when you had the chance. Oh, and I will, you know. I can hurt you in all sorts of fun little ways that you've never even thought about. You're too 'pure and good' for that sort of shit. No, you're in for a surprise."

"I'm not afraid of you," Minako told him calmly. "I know you'd never hurt me. You can't."

"Oh, I can't, can I? Really? Okay let me let you in on a little secret. Do you know what I think about when I look at you? What I was thinking about when I got you to fuck me for the first time?"

"No," rasped Tohru. Minako felt his hand close into a vice around her arm. She covered his hand with hers to try and reassure him.

"I was thinking about those women that I tried to have," snarled Shadow Adachi. "You know, the ones that I tried to rape. The ones that I got sick of and threw away because they bored me. I was thinking about the looks on their stupid faces when I started in on them. Sometimes I fantasize about what you'd look like if I just got the chance to-!"

"Shut the fuck up!" screamed Tohru. He was breathing hard, now, and Minako looked down to see that his knuckles on her arm were turning white. He turned to face her, and when their eyes met the suddenly let go of her and stumbled backwards, staring at her with desperation and something like nausea in his eyes. Minako felt a little bit sick to her own stomach, listening to those awful words coming out of the mouth of a man that she thought she might be starting to love. The idea of him looking at her with those awful, hungry eyes, and imagining the things he could do to her sent cold, disquieting shivers down her usually so stoic spine.

Tohru had clenched both of his fists and was holding them at his sides, not looking at her. It was amazing and surreal, she mused, just how much one person could be of two minds.

"I could tear you apart, you dumbass kid," Shadow Adachi was saying. "I could rip you to pieces and smile while you bleed, and moan, and cry like you had no idea what I was capable of. I've done it before. I could-!"

"Then do it," murmured Minako.

Shadow Adachi stopped talking. He looked surprised, for a moment. Tohru, too, looked up at her in shock.

"What the hell?" asked Shadow Adachi. "Did you just-?"

"I said," repeated Minako, a little bit more loudly and with a little bit more confidence than she was sure she actually felt, "Do it. Hurt me. Break me. Do all of those things that you say that you can do. I want to see it, I want you to prove it to me."

She stood there, staring Shadow Adachi down, and he gradually began to look more uncertain and frustrated. Gritting his teeth, yellow eyes flashing with rage, he took a step forward, and then suddenly found himself flung backwards, as though some invisible thread had jerked him by the neck and thrown him to the ground. He lay there for a second, then sat up slowly and stared at something just past Minako's shoulder.

When Minako followed his gaze, she found that Tohru was glaring daggers at him, eyes dark and cold with bitter determination.

"You see?" she asked, turning back to Shadow Adachi. "You can't, can you? You can't do any of it." She spun around, bringing her face to face with Tohru., "Because _you_ can't do it. There's more to you than you think. I know who you are. You're enough of a man to hold yourself back from the horrible, darker parts of you. I know that's true. I believe in you. I trust you. That's all there is. You don't have to beat yourself up about it anymore. You're a better man than you were when you hurt those women. You're a better man than you've let yourself be, before. It's time for that to change."

Tohru and Shadow Adachi continued to look into each other's eyes, both of them frozen in a moment that even Minako couldn't interfere with.

"Damnit," muttered Tohru.

Shadow Adachi rolled his eyes. "Jeez," he muttered. "What a drag…"

Shadow Adachi sighed, nodded once, and then slowly vanished into a glittering mass that had Minako, unused to any sort of light or brilliance, shielding her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, Tohru was crouching on the ground, holding something that looked like a persona card in his right hand.

"Nah," he said, "this isn't right. This isn't…"

Minako reached over and took the card from him. There was a picture of Magatsu Izanagi on it.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I…uh, I'm not sure," mumbled Tohru. "Wasn't this supposed to change, or something? I mean, wasn't there supposed to be some sort of epic re-awakening where I suddenly figure that I'm really a knight in shining armor after all?" He scowled, shaking his head. "Crap, was this all for nothing? What the hell was the point?"

Minako used his shoulder for leverage as she reached up to kiss him on the cheek. He flinched and then blushed instantly as she touched him, and she smiled, glad to see that he was both talking and acting a little bit more like the Tohru that she'd come to expect .

"The point," she told him, "is that now, it really is over. You're the same person you've always been. That was never supposed to change. You just needed to understand the different parts of yourself well enough to realize who you really are. Maybe I needed that, too."

As they walked back through the nightmare room together, Tohru stuck his hands in his pockets and spent some time watching the eyeballs on the walls. When he looked at Minako and opened his mouth, she expected him to come out with something witty, pithy, and potentially alarming.

"Hey," he said instead. "For the record…you standing up to the other me like that was insanely hot. Did I ever tell how good you look when you're pissed off?"

Minako laughed with some combination of relief and exasperation.

"Yes," she said, perhaps more to herself than to Tohru. "That's my Tohru. Nothing's changed."

He raised an eyebrow at her, and there was a gleam in his eye that sent a totally different kind of chill down her spine.

"Huh," he began, "so, about the way you said that…if I'm 'your Tohru,' does that make you 'mine?'"

They were out in the Velvet Room again by now, and as soon as she turned around to answer him, he snaked his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. For just a moment, Minako felt herself flinch involuntarily as she caught a glimpse in his eyes of Shadow Adachi, the man that fantasized about things she couldn't even begin to imagine.

Tohru must have noticed her reaction, because the leer tumbled off his face and gave way to an uncertain, lost sort of grimace that made Minako curse herself for having let him see her doubt him.

"Forget it," he muttered, letting go of her. "Just…um…I get it. You're freaked out. You'd be nuts if you weren't'. You don't have to-!"

Before Minako had a chance to say any of the reassuring things that were on the tip of her tongue, she heard a door behind her open. She and Tohru both turned around, to find Yosuke, Junpei, and the entire investigation team all staring at them from the Velvet Room doorway.

"Aw, hell," muttered Junpei under his breath. His eyes met Minako's, and she swallowed hard.

"What the-?" began Yosuke.


	28. Twenty Seven - Collision

**Author's Note: **Oookay…so now I have to write this. *sigh* Nothing for it, I wrote the damn plot for this thing, no one to blame but myself. Let's just get this over with….

I should warn you, this story is going to finish up in a couple of chapters, and it is going to end on an ugly cliffhanger. That was the original plan, and I'm sticking to it. There will be more stories that continue this arc, although in a slightly different format than the stuff I usually write, so please stay tuned for more information.

Also, don't get too incensed about the way Dojima behaves in this chapter. There's more for him on the horizon…in fact, so much more that he may need his own story, so for now, let's focus on the rest of what's going on here.

**Twenty Seven – December 26**

Minako felt Tohru tense up even as they rapidly left each other's arms. He spun around to stare at Yosuke, who was staring back at them both with some combination of disbelief and betrayal in his eyes that made something twist horribly in the pit of Minako's stomach.

"What the hell-?" began Yosuke.

"Wait," interrupted Junpei, stepping forward and almost shoving Yosuke out of the way. "Hang on a second. Something's not right."

"You're telling me something's not right. Am I crazy, did it just look like-?" Yosuke started again.

Junpei wasn't paying any attention to him. In a rush, he made his way across the room until he was right in front of Minako. "Mina-tan," he said. "Look at me."

Obediently, Minako tore her eyes away from Yosuke's face and looked directly at Junpei.

Junpei drew in a sharp breath, then put both of his hands on her shoulders and stared hard into her eyes.

"Holy hell," he breathed. "You can see, right? You can…you can fucking see. Hey," he asked, putting one hand in the air right next to Minako's face. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Um…five?" hazarded Minako, uncertain if she was supposed to interpret his frantically shaking hand in the air as a set of five fingers.

Junpei let out a triumphant bark of laughter, then suddenly grabbed her and pulled her into a rough hug that knocked the wind out of her for a moment and left her gasping. Something wet fell on her shoulder, and she looked up to see Junpei sniffling and wiping a hand quickly across his face."

"Junpei," she began, but Junpei shook his head at her to cut her off.

"Don't say anything," he muttered. "Just…hey, you know what, there's nothing unmanly about it, okay? I'm just…there are just a lot of feelings, and…whatever, it doesn't matter, you can fucking see!"

For a moment, Minako couldn't think of anything to say. "Wow, Junpei," she whispered finally, trying to squeeze a hint of teasing into her voice. "You really do seem to cry a lot these days…"

"Shut up," muttered Junpei. "It's probably your damn fault…"

"Oh, Minako!" called Yukari, running over and completely ignoring Junpei in her quest to give Minako an enthusiastic hug. "It's so wonderful!"

One by one, each of the other members of SEES came over to give Minako their warmest congratulations. She was having trouble keeping her own eyes dry as Fuuka, Ken, Aigis, Mitsuru, and even Koro joined her to give her their heartfelt congratulations. There was something particularly gratifying about the embrace she received from Akihiko, who looked at her with pride in his eyes as he gave her shoulder a squeeze, and told her, "It's great to have you back." Somehow, it was more than just good to know that after everything, he was still on her side, even if that meant something totally different from what it had done before. It was a satisfying relief to realize just how full circle things had managed to come for them, and she felt a tinge of regret, even in the midst of her joy, that she hadn't been able to find that with Shinjiro. She missed him, suddenly. For the first time since they'd all co me back to Inaba together, the scene felt emptier without him.

"Yaaay!" shouted Nanako, barreling towards the throng, and being stopped just short of running straight into Minako by Mitsuru's cautiously outstretched arm. "You're okay! Just like Big Bro!"

"Big Bro?" asked Minako, frowning. She looked past Nanako, into the slowly smiling faces of the rest of the investigation team, and suddenly realized that Yu was standing there with them. He was actually standing there, not sitting or riding in his chair, but standing up and beaming at her over the heads of the others.

"Oh, Yu!" breathed Minako, overjoyed. She ran to him, and they stood and looked at each other for a moment, again, even after so much time, uncertain how to put their remarkable, unfathomable shared experience into words that anyone else would understand.

"Congratulations," murmured Yu.

Minako bit her lip, afraid that she, too, might start crying the way Junpei had tried and failed not to do. "I'm so happy," she told him, for want of any better way to put it. "It worked on you, too…and now everything's going to be all right, again. We're going to be okay, and things are going to go back to the way they were supposed to be. It's…it's really over."

Yu nodded. "You have to tell me how it happened," he insisted. "Maybe not right now, but sometime soon. We can compare notes…I want to know if it was the same for you."

Minako nodded. "Of course," she said. "Maybe we should go home, regroup, and then you can tell me what-!"

"No," shouted Yosuke, so loudly and emphatically that all other conversations stopped as both teams turned to stare at him, open-mouthed. He was still standing in the doorway, not having moved an inch from where he'd been when they'd first come in. His eyes were fixed on Minako's face, and he didn't look excited, or relieved. Instead, he looked furious. Minako swallowed hard, as his eyes bore into every inch of her face, demanding something with that look that she wasn't sure how to answer to. "You can tell us all right now," he continued, his voice stony and clipped, as he gritted out each word through uncompromising teeth. "What the fuck is going on here? I want to know what you're doing here with him." He shot a look of pure poison in Tohru's direction, then immediately faced back to Minako, making it clear that Tohru wasn't the real problem here. She was the problem, and even Minako knew, through the sinking feeling inside her, that she did owe him some answers.

"Hey, Yosuke," began Yu, holding one hand up placatingly. "Look, now's not the-!"

"No, its okay," Minako insisted, shaking her head. "I don't mind. Yosuke deserves to know the truth…you all do." She looked around at her assembled friends, then glanced back at Tohru for support, but found him staring at her expectantly, as if just as anxious to hear what she was about to say as all the rest of them were.

That was a bit unsettling..

"Yosuke," she started again, taking a deep breath, "Tohru and I were both-!"

"Tohru," spat Yosuke, interrupting her and stopping her dead with the disappointed venom in his voice. "Jeez, you call him fucking Tohru…when did the two of you start using first names, huh? When did that start being a thing?"

Suddenly, Rise gasped. "Oh, no, I remember," she announced. "That guy…that guy you told us about. He was…Adachi was the guy!"

Now Chie, Rise and Yukiko were all staring at her accusingly as well. She vaguely remembered a conversation she'd had with them once before, about an "older man" that she was interested in when she and Shinjiro had still been together. The memory of the way she'd handled that situation made her a bit sick to her stomach with embarrassment and guilt, and she had a hard time meeting Yosuke's eyes when she again looked up to try and complete her explanation.

"Yosuke, please," she begged him. "Without Tohru, I never would have regained my sight, or my persona. He's the reason that-!"

"He's the reason that all of this went down in the first place!' shouted Yosuke, apparently losing control of whatever cool or composure he'd had left. "He's the one who killed all those people! Saki-senpai…" For a moment, Yosuke closed his eyes, and Minako could see the pain etched in his face that showed up there whenever he had the courage to breathe that girl's name. "He's the reason the world's the way it is. He's the reason we had to fight for all of this!"

Minako shook her head. "You're wrong, Yosuke. You're wrong, it was Nyx that started this whole mess. It was Nyx that got Yu caught up in the seal, and it was Nyx that we had to-!"

"If it hadn't been for that murderous son of a bitch, we never would have needed our personas," shouted Yosuke, now livid with rage. "We never would have had to fight the shadows, we never would have even met or had to get mixed up with or deal with you people! None of this would have happened!"

"Yosuke," breathed Rise in shock. A dull murmur started in the ranks of the investigation team, although Minako couldn't make out any distinct words.

Yosuke began advancing on Minako, and she felt the other members of SEES instinctively close ranks around her as he approached.

"Without him," snarled Yosuke, "Yu would never have had to die."

"That was one side of him," murmured Minako, her courage starting to leave her the closer that Yosuke got. She was frightened, suddenly, really and truly frightened of someone she'd thought of as a friend and even a 'partner' only minutes before. "Everyone has-!"

"Don't you dare tell me that everyone has bad sides too," grated Yosuke." Don't you fucking dare…because not everybody's bad side is a murderer. Not everybody's bad side is a monster, like him, okay? We have a choice. We all have a choice." Glancing back at Yu, Yosuke shook his head. "I had a choice. I had a choice to kill you, when Yu was in danger, or to let you live. I let you live." Biting down hard on his lip, he shook his head, as though trying to shake something awful out of it."Maybe that was the wrong choice, huh? Maybe I should have let you die."

The next series of events happened very, very quickly, so quickly that Minako barely had time to catch her breath. Junpei suddenly stepped around the others and punched Yosuke hard in the face. Yosuke, unprepared for the assault, staggered back into Naoto, who caught and supported him while Chie, Yukiko, Kanji, Teddie, and Rise formed up around Yosuke. SEES and the investigation team stood opposite each other, each protecting their leader, staring each other down. Minako began to panic, wondering how she'd lost control of this situation and how she could stop things before the devolved into even more of the chaos that pitted friend against friend in the way this seemed to be promising to do.

"You take that back," muttered Junpei, placing a protective arm around Minako's shoulders. "You take that back, or I swear I'll-!"

"You'll what?" spat Yosuke."You'll what, huh? Go on, bring it, I've been waiting for a chance to tangle with you. I owe you for what you did to Nanako, and for what Minako did to-!"

"ENOUGH!"

The bellow came from the doorway, and stopped everyone dead in their tracks. Minako looked up to see Dojima standing in the entrance to the Velvet Room, with a sobbing Nanako clinging to his leg.

From just behind Minako, Tohru muttered, "Dojima-san." He stepped forward, as though potentially heading for the doorway, but Dojima immediately recoiled from him, with a look on his face that Minako could only identify as a combination of tired confusion and disgust. The two of them stood there for what felt like forever, gazes locked as Dojima's mouth opened and closed once or twice in what might have been attempts at speech, or just fish-faced disbelief.

"It's…it's enough," mumbled Dojima into the subsequent silence. "I can't deal with any more of this. It's over. It's…done now. Let's just get out of here. That's an order."

Turning on his heel, Dojima half led and half dragged Nanako away from the door, and back into the real world. Shooting one last hate-laden glance at Minako and Junpei, Yosuke was quick to follow suit. Before long, the rest of the investigation had shuffled out as well, except for Rise, who was still standing and watching Junpei with a conflicted look on her face.

"Junpei," she murmured, reaching hesitantly out to him.

Junpei just shrugged. "Go on," he mumbled, turning away from her. "Get out of here. Your friends are gonna worry, or something."

Rise looked hurt for a moment, and opened her mouth like there was something she wanted to say, but Junpei kept his back to her, and she eventually frowned, sighed, and then hurried off to follow the rest of her team.

Junpei, however, wasn't finished. Rounding on Tohru, who was still standing stock-still in the midst of SEES, he raised an accusing eyebrow. "What the hell was that?" he asked. "Where were you? I thought you cared about her. Why the hell didn't you do anything?"

Tohru looked harassed. "What did you want me to do? Nothing I could do…you think it'd help if I started messing with that Hanamura kid? You're a dumbass. Like my beating up on your friends was gonna solve anything…jeez. Probably just end up making it worse…not that I care what they think. Bunch of obnoxious kids…"

He looked at Minako for support, but she suddenly found that she couldn't meet his eyes. She was angry, angry that he hadn't found a way to make her feel better, to or to make them understand what she and Tohru meant to each other. Of course, she knew, the anger didn't make sense. It was illogical, since in the end, Tohru was probably right. Anything he might have said would probably have made the situation worse. Still…he'd just stood there while Yosuke had railed at her, railed at her about things she'd done with him. Somehow, she'd wanted more, even if she wasn't sure just exactly what that "more" was.

"Some kind of Romeo you are," muttered Junpei, shaking his head at Tohru. "Figures. Not that I expected much."


	29. Twenty Eight - The Future

**Twenty Eight – The Future**

After the investigation team had left, it didn't take long for SEES to start muttering amongst themselves.

"I can't believe he'd say that you to you," announced Yukari, clearly incensed, her eyes flashing. "How the…after everything that you've done for him, and the way you did all you could to help Yu! You were gonna…." She swallowed, apparently unwilling to finish that particular thought. "Did he forget everything that happened that year? The way you were going to throw your life away?"

"Again," mumbled Junpei. Yukari shot him a quelling look.

Minako shook her head. She felt heavy and miserable, still picturing the look in Yosuke's accusing eyes when he'd shouted at her that he would have been better off if he'd left her for dead. "No," she murmured. "No, he…he hasn't forgotten. I don't think he'll ever forget. Yosuke's the kind to hold a grudge. It hurt him so much, when he thought that he was going to lose Yu forever. This has all hurt him more than I think any of us can really understand."

"Speak for yourself," interjected Junpei again. Minako glanced at him, and saw the closed, contemplative look on his face.

"I suspect," said Mitsuru," that it would be unwise, under the circumstances, for Arisato to remain in this hostile environment. Perhaps it would be best for her to return to the island with us, for the time being."

The rest of SEES seemed to be in general agreement with that. "That's a good idea," said Fuuka, nodding. "After all, the things that you needed to do here are finished, aren't they? Now that you have your sight back, and your persona as well, then…I guess that's it. It seems like it's time."

"Wait, hang on!" insisted Junpei. "What about me? You're not just gonna leave me here all alone, are you? Mina-tan, come on, have a heart…"

In an uncharacteristic display of affection, Yukari put an arm around Junpei's shoulders. "Don't be an idiot, Stupei. You're coming too, obviously. Let's all go home together. That's the way it was always supposed to be, right? All of us, together at the end. It didn't look like it was possible before, but…now Fuuka's right, it's time to live the rest of our lives, just the way we wanted to."

Minako looked into all the eager, smiling faces of her friends, and her heart went out to them. The idea of being able to live the life she'd always wanted, together with the people she cared about most in the world was something that she'd never even been able to seriously contemplate before. They were right, she realized. It was all over. She was alive, she was whole again, and Nyx was trapped, presumably forever. The world was waiting for her to make her way through it, to create the future for herself and for her friends that she'd never been allowed to have. Even when there had been hope on the horizon, as there had been so many times over the last few miserable, magical years, she'd never had the surety that everything would come out all right. Now, she really had reached the end of her journey, and the light was visible at the end of the tunnel.

Yet, at the same time, something ached inside her. In her ideal image of how the future was supposed to be, she was standing alongside all of her friends, including the new, Inaba friends with whom she'd forged such seemingly tight and intimate bonds throughout the recent ordeals. When she really thought about it, Minako knew that she wasn't willing to give up on what she had with Yosuke, Yu, Rise, and the others. Nothing would ever feel truly right again if she did. She'd made this mess for herself, and she'd never be able to live with herself if she left it behind and didn't make the effort to re-forge the bonds that had meant so much to her for so long.

"I don't know," mumbled Junpei. "That's a big move, and a big decision…it's a tough one. What do you say, Minako? You leaving?"

"I…don't know," she admitted. "I can't think straight, not right now. Besides, part of it really depends on you. It wouldn't be worth it without you," she assured him. "I don't want a future that you're not in."

Junpei grinned, a bit sheepishly. "Hell," he admitted, "it's not like I'm really all that attached to this place anyway. It was different when Chidori was around, but…hey, there's other stuff out there for me, now. I'm game to blow this joint if that's what you want. Might be good for us both."

Minako closed her eyes. Yes, she thought. It would be wonderful to go back to Iwatodai with the others, and pretend that none of this had ever taken place. She might even be almost happy that way, but never completely happy. No, there were some things that she just couldn't leave behind.

Out of the corner of her eye, Minako saw Tohru, still standing a few feet away, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

"Excuse me," she said to her friends. "I'm sorry, I…think I just need a moment alone, if that's okay. I promise, I won't be too long."

Yukari's eyes strayed to Tohru's face as well, and apparently she understood, because it didn't' take her very long to rally the others and to usher them back out of the Velvet Room door into the real world. Only Junpei remained behind, glaring skeptically at Tohru.

"You sure?" he asked her. "Cause I can stay."

Minako gave him a reassuring smile. "I'm sure," she insisted. "I'll be fine. Please. I'll be along soon."

Throwing up his hands in a gesture of defeat, Junpei shook his head and then jogged off to join the others.

Tohru and Minako stood across from each other for a moment, finally alone.

"Jeez," muttered Tohru. "That…was pretty intense, huh?"

"Why didn't you say anything?" asked Minako. "When Yosuke was talking about you, and about…about us, why didn't you speak up?"

Tohru gave her a long, searching look, then glanced down at his hands with a strange sort of downcast expression in his eyes. He cleared his throat.

"I was waiting for you to go first," he mumbled.

Minako blinked. "What?"

"I was waiting," repeated Tohru, slightly louder this time, "for you to look that Hanamura guy in the eye and tell him to go to hell because of how you feel about me. This whole time, we've been playing this weird, twisted game where you're the savior of the goddamn world and I'm the victim of some cosmic injustice. You get off on that shit…and that's fine. I get it. But…" He frowned for a moment, took a deep breath, and then shook his head before meeting Minako's gaze again. "After the other night, when I freaked out on you and asked you to be with me, I thought we'd sorted this shit out. I thought we were on the same page. But…when you started talking to Hanamura, all you said to him was that people have different sides, and that it wasn't my fault, and…it was like you were talking about the whole fucking world, again, and not about me at all."

"I don't understand what you-!" began Minako.

Tohru cut her off impatiently. "No, you do. Don't play that innocent shit with me. You get it, and so does that friend of yours, Iori."

Minako was starting to get angry. What was this all about, all of a sudden? Hadn't he seen what had just happened, what she'd had to go through for him? "I gave up everything for you!' she insisted.

"Yeah?" asked Tohru, crossing his arms. "That so? Did you? Or did you give it all up just to prove a point? Just to make it clear that you were right about me, and they were wrong? That everybody's human, and that you know how to tell up from down and right from wrong? I'm not a nice guy, damnit, I'm a selfish asshole, and I want this. I want this to be about me, not about saving the world and every sucker in it."

He reached for her suddenly, and pulled her to him, kissing her angrily and passionately with a crazy light in his eyes that reminded her of what she'd already told him to accept in himself. "You feel that?" he asked breathlessly, releasing her and leaving her swaying unsteadily in place. "That's what I want. I want you. I don't want a messiah, or the goddamn second coming. I don't wanna be saved, I want you. I want you to need me, to crave what it feels like to have me touch you, to think about me when you're trying hard as hell not to."

Minako opened her mouth to answer him, but he didn't let her even get the words out.

"Listen," he muttered. "You go find Hanamura, and you tell him that it's got nothing to do with right and wrong, or with what people are really made of. You tell him you're in love with me. You come back and I'll be here. Hell, it's not like there's anywhere else for me to go."

Tohru turned and started walking off, back into the recesses of the Velvet Room, towards the nightmare doors. Just before disappearing from sight, he stopped.

"But if you can't do it," he muttered, still not turning around, "then don't bother coming back. Probably better for both of us if you don't. If there isn't something here worth throwing it all away for, then don't bother. Give it time, they'll forgive you. Goody two shoes brats like that usually do."

He paused for a moment, and Minako was sure he'd finished. Then, suddenly, and a bit more quietly, he added, "Besides…you're the kind of kid it's not hard to love. And hey, coming from me, that's really saying something."

Tohru pushed open the nightmare door, and then stepped through, closing it silently behind him on the other side. Minako stood there staring at it for a moment, wondering why she couldn't find it in herself to say the words she needed to say to fix whatever nonsensical fiasco had just taken place.

Footsteps behind her made her turn around again, and she saw that Yu was walking towards her through the Velvet Room.

"Minako," he said. "I'm sorry. Listen, I'll talk to Yosuke. It'll be all right. I know he's angry now, but…"

Minako just shook her head. Her head felt heavy, and suddenly she was very, very tired. "No," she told him, "don't worry about it. I'll…I'll handle things with Yosuke. I created this, now I have to…figure it out. I know that's the way it's supposed to work."

"You don't have to do it alone," Yu reminded her, smiling.

The smile, for some reason, didn't make Minako feel any better. She could hear the echo of her own words in Yu's, something she'd told her friends and even Tohru so many times. Still, at this moment she felt more alone than she ever had before, and the knowledge that she'd done all of this to herself only made it worse. She'd wanted everything, and ended up with what felt an awful lot like nothing.

"I'm glad to see you're feeling better," she told him honestly, doing her best to smile back. "Go have fun with your friends. I'll fix this, I promise. It'll be all right."

Yu looked uncertain. "Are you sure? You really don't look so good."

Minako didn't feel exactly "good," either, but the longer she spent thinking about it, the more secure she was in the knowledge that there would, there must be a way to make this right. After all, she reminded herself, if there was anything that this whole experience had taught her it was that there were some things so powerful that they couldn't under any circumstances be broken.

She and Yu stood together in the Velvet Room, in between the doors through which their friends had left and the place that Tohru had stalked off to after delivering his parting shot. Yu didn't say anything, but Minako could feel the way his very presence had a calming effect on her, the same calming, positive effect that she knew it must have on his team and the people who followed him. That was one of the things that made him an amazing leader; the ability to calm the storms and fix the things that were broken.

She had been a leader once too, and as she watched Yu's face, she realized that it was time, had been time for a while now for her to become one again. She understood people, understood how they worked and what the things were that hurt or helped them. She cared about people, and she wanted more than anything to mend the bonds to bring the ones she loved back together. That was who she was and what she needed to move on. That was her reason, and the future wouldn't exist of she couldn't have that. There was more to life than being alive. In the end, nothing mattered if she had to be alone.

"Yes," she told him, nodding and feeling stronger and more vulnerable at one and the same time, even as she said it. "I'm sure."

**Author's Closing Note: **(warning: if you've already read the conclusion to **Piecekeeping**, then this note will seem strangely familiar…I won't use the word 'redundant' if you don't, mkay?

Oh dear god, what have I done? So many loose ends, so many damaged relationships, so much that needs to be fixed…

Yes, unfortunately this is the end of **Messiah**, as this is the end, more or less, of the Velvet Room shadow epic. This is, however, obviously not the end of the overall story arc, since there are now a million broken pieces and a million broken bonds that have to be put back together. I promise you, I have plotted out and thus intend to fix every single broken thing that I have just destroyed, but I have not decided exactly what story format I am going to use to do that. I feel that the problems I've created here are much more character-driven and intimate, and thus will probably require several short, more focused stories, rather than one giant epic.

If you're interested in seeing how I put the pieces back together, please keep an eye on my page, and check out the stories that I'll begin posting soon. Again, I'm not sure entirely how I'm going to tackle this, but I will tackle it, and relatively quickly, so I hope that you've at least sort of enjoyed the ride so far, and that you're ready, finally, for the next installment in what has become a beloved project of mine.

Thank you very much for reading, it means more to me than I can reasonably express.

And now, if you'll excuse me, after writing the conclusions to both stories in a single Sunday sitting, I am going to pass out. Cheers!


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